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NATURAL HISTORY 



ENTHUSIASM. 



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SEVENTH EDITION. 



LONDON : 
HOLDS WORTH AND BALL, 

AMEN CORNER. 
MDCCCXXX1V. 



X 






R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD-STREET-HILL. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The belief that a bright era of renovation, 
and union, and extension, presently awaits the 
Christian Church, seems to be very generally 
entertained. The writer of this volume partici- 
pates in the cheering hope ; and it has impelled 
him to undertake the difficult task of describing, 
under its various forms, that fictitious piety 
which hitherto has never failed to appear in 
times of unusual religious excitement, and 
which may be anticipated as the probable atten- 
dant of a new development of the powers of 
Christianity. 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

But while it has been the writer's principal 
aim to present before the Christian reader, in 
as distinct a manner as possible, the characters 
of that perilous illusion which too often sup- 
plants genuine piety, he has also endeavoured 
so to fix the sense of the term — Enthusiasm, 
as to wrest it from those who misuse it to 
their own infinite damage. 



CONTENTS. 



SECTION I. 

PAGE 

Enthusiasm Secular and Religious 1 

SECTION II. 
Enthusiasm in Devotion 23 

SECTION III. 

Enthusiastic Perversions of the Doctrine of Divine 

Influence 61 

SECTION IV. 
Enthusiasm the Source of Heresy 79 

SECTION V. 
Enthusiasm of Prophetic Interpretation 98 

SECTION VI. 

Enthusiastic Abuses of the Doctrine of a Particular 

Providence 123 



VI CONTENTS. 

SECTION VII. 

PAGE 

Enthusiasm of Philanthropy 159 

SECTION VIII. 

Sketch of the Enthusiasm of the Ancient Church .... 185 

SECTION IX. 

The same subject — Ingredients of the Ancient Mona- 

chism 215 

SECTION X. 

Hints on the probable Spread of Christianity, submitted 

to those who misuse the term — Enthusiasm .... 260 



Note to Section 1 318 



NATURAL 

HISTORY OF ENTHUSIASM. 



SECTION I. 

ENTHUSIASM, SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 

Some form of beauty, engendered by the ima- 
gination, or some semblance of dignity or grace, 
invests almost every object that excites desire. 
These illusions, if indeed they ought to be called 
illusions, serve the purpose of blending the in- 
congruous materials of human nature, and by 
mediating between body and spirit, reconcile the 
animal and intellectual propensities, and give 
dignity and harmony to the character of man. 
By these unsubstantial impressions it is that the 
social affections are enriched and enlivened ; by 
these, not less than by the superiority of the 
reasoning faculties, mankind is elevated above 
the brute ; and it is these, as the germinating 
principles of all improvement and refinement, 
that distinguish civilized from savage life. 



Z ENTHUSIASM, 

The constitutional difference between one man 
and another is to be traced, in great measure, 
to the quality and vigour of the imagination. 
Thus it will be found that eminently active and 
energetic spirits are peculiarly susceptible to 
those natural exaggerations by which the mind 
enhances the value of whatever it pursues. At 
the same time an efficient energy always implies 
the power of control over such impressions. Yet 
it is enough that these creations of fancy should 
be under the command of reason ; for good sense 
by no means demands a rigid scrutiny into the 
composition or mechanism of common motives, 
or asks that whatever is not absolutely substantial 
in the objects of desire should be spurned. He 
who is not too wise to be happy, leaves the 
machinery of human nature to accomplish its 
revolutions unexplored, and is content to hold 
the mastery over its movements. Whoever, 
instead of simply repressing the irregularities of 
the imagination, and forbidding its predominance, 
would altogether exclude its influence, must 
either sink far below the common level of 
humanity, or rise much above it. 

The excesses of the imagination are of two 
kinds ; the first is when, within its proper sphere, 
it gains so great a power that every other affec- 
tion and motive belonging to human nature is 
overborne and excluded. It is thus that intel- 
lectual or professional pursuits seem sometimes 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 



to annihilate all sympathy with the common 
interests of life, and to render man a mere phan- 
tom, except within the particular circle of his 
favourite objects. 

The second kind of excess (one species of which 
forms the subject of the present work) is of much 
more evil tendency, and consists in a trespass of 
the imagination upon ground where it should 
have little or no influence, and where it can only 
prevent or disturb the operation of reason and 
right feeling. Thus, not seldom, it is seen that, 
on the walks of common life, the sobrieties of 
good sense, and the counsels of experience, and 
the obvious motives of interest, and perhaps even 
the dictates of rectitude, are set at nought by some 
fiction of an exorbitant imagination, which over- 
stepping its proper function, invests even the 
most ordinary objects, either with preposterous 
charms or with unreal deformities. 

Very few minds, perhaps, are altogether free 
from such constitutional errors of the intellectual 
sight, which, to a greater or less extent, intercept 
our view of things as they are. And from the 
same cause it is that we so greatly miscalculate 
the amount of happiness or of suffering that 
belongs to the lot of those around us ; which 
happens, not so much because their actual cir- 
cumstances are unknown, as because their ha- 
bitual illusions are not perceived by us. And if 
the colouring medium through which every man 
contemplates his own condition were exposed to 

b2 



4 ENTHUSIASM, 

the eyes of others, the victims of calamity might 
sometimes be envied ; and still oftener would the 
favourites of fortune become the objects of pity. 
Or if every one were in a moment to be disen- 
chanted of whatever is ideal in his permanent 
sensations, every one would think himself at once 
much less happy, and much more so, than he 
had hitherto supposed. 

The force and extravagance of the imagination 
is in some constitutions so great, that it admits 
of no correction from even the severest lessons 
of experience, much less from the advices of 
wisdom: the enthusiast passes through life in 
a sort of happy somnambulency — smiling and 
dreaming as he goes, unconscious of whatever is 
real, and busy with whatever is fantastic : now 
he treads with naked foot on thorns ; now plunges 
through depths ; now verges the precipice, and 
always preserves the same impassible serenity, 
and displays the same reckless hardihood. 

But if the predominance of the imagination 
do not approach quite so near to the limits of 
insanity, if it admit of correction, then, the many 
checks and reverses which belong to the common 
course of human life, usually fray it away from 
present scenes, and either send it back in pensive 
recollections of past pleasures, or forwards in an- 
ticipation of a bright futurity. The former is, of 
the two, the safer kind of constitutional error; for 
as the objects upon which the imagination fixes 
its gaze remain always unchanged, they impart a 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. s 

sort of tranquillity to the mind, and even favour 
its converse with wisdom ; but the latter being 
variable, and altogether under the command of 
the inventive faculty, bring with them perpetual 
agitations, and continually create new excite- 
ments. Besides ; as these egregious hopes come 
in their turn to be dispelled by realities, the fond 
pensioner upon futurity lives amid the vexations 
of one who believes himself always plundered ; 
for each day as it comes robs him of what he had 
called his own. Thus the real ills of life pierce 
the heart with a double edge. 

The propensity of a disordered imagination to 
find, or to create, some region of fictitious hap- 
piness, leads not a few to betake themselves to 
the fields of intellectual enjoyment, where they 
may be exempt from the annoyances that infest 
the lower world. Hence it is that the walks of 
natural philosophy or abstract science, and of 
literature, and especially of poetry and the fine 
arts, are frequented by many who addict them- 
selves to pursuits of this kind, not so much from 
the genuine impulse of native genius or taste, as 
from a yearning desire to discover some paradise 
of delights, where no croaking voice of dis- 
appointment is heard, and where adversity has 
no range or leave of entrance. These intruders 
upon the realms of philosophy — these refugees 
from the vexations of common life, as they are in 
quest merely of solace and diversion, do not often 
become effective labourers in the departments 



O ENTHUSIASM, 

upon which they enter : their motive possesses 
not the vigour necessary for continued and pro- 
ductive toil. Or if a degree of ambition happens 
to be conjoined with the feeble ardour of the mind, 
it renders them empirics in science, or schemers 
in mechanics ; or they essay their ineptitude 
upon some gaudy or preposterous extravagance 
of verse or picture ; or perhaps spend their days 
in loading folios, shelves and glass-cases with 
curious lumber of whatever kind most completely 
unites the qualities of rarity and worthlessness. 

Nature has furnished each of the active faculties 
with a sensibility to pleasure in its own exer- 
cise : this sensibility is the spring of spontaneous 
exertion ; and if the intellectual constitution be 
robust, it serves to stimulate labour, and yet itself 
observes a modest sobriety, leaving the forces of 
the mind to do their part without embarrassment. 
The pleasurable emotion is always subordinate 
and subservient, never predominant or impor- 
tunate. But in minds of a less healthy tempera- 
ment, the emotion of pleasure and the consequent 
excitement is disproportionate to the strength of 
the faculties. The efficient power of the under- 
standing is therefore overborne, and left in the 
rear ; there is more of commotion than of action ; 
more of movement than of progress ; more of 
enterprise than of achievement. 

Such then are those who, in due regard both 
to the essential differences of character, and to 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 7 

the proprieties of language, should be termed 
Enthusiasts. To apply an epithet which carries 
with it an idea of folly, of weakness, and of 
extravagance, to a vigorous mind, efficiently as 
well as ardently engaged in the pursuit of any 
substantial and important object, is not merely to 
misuse a word, but to introduce confusion among 
our notions, and to put contempt upon what is 
deserving of respect. Where there is no error 
of imagination, no misjudging of realities, no 
calculations which reason condemns, there is no 
enthusiasm, even though the soul may be on fire 
with the velocity of its movement in pursuit of 
its chosen object. If once we abandon this dis- 
tinction, language will want a term for a well- 
known and very common vice of the mind ; and, 
from a wasteful perversion of phrases, we must 
be reduced to speak of qualities most noble and 
most base by the very same designation. If the^ 
objects which excite the ardour of the mind are 
substantial, and if the mode of pursuit be truly 
conducive to their attainment ; if, in a word, all 
be real and genuine, then it is not one degree 
more, or even many degrees more, of intensity 
of feeling that can alter the character of the 
emotion. Enthusiasm is not a term of measure- 
ment, but of quality. 

When it is said that enthusiasm is the fault of 
infirm constitutions, a seeming exception must 
be made in behalf of a few high-tempered spirits, 
distinguished by their indefatigable energy, and 



o 



8 ENTHUSIASM, 

destined to achieve arduous and hazardous en- 
terprises. That such spirits often exhibit the 
characters of enthusiasm cannot be denied ; for 
the imagination spurns restraint, and rejects all 
the sober measurements and calculations of reason 
whenever its chosen object is in view ; and a tinge, 
often more than a tinge, of extravagance belongs 
to every word and action. And yet the exception 
is only apparent ; for although these giants of 
human nature greatly surpass other men in force 
of mind, and courage, and activity, still the heroic 
extravagance, and the irregular and ungovernable 
power which enables them to dare and to do so 
much, is, in fact, nothing more than a partial 
accumulation of strength, necessary because the 
utmost energies of human nature are so small, 
that, if equally distributed through the system, 
they would be inadequate to arduous labours. 
The very same task, which the human hero 
achieves in the fury and fever of a half-mad 
enthusiasm, would be performed by a seraph in 
the perfect serenity of reason. Although there- 
fore these vigorous minds are strong when placed 
in comparison with others, their enthusiasm is in 
itself a weakness ; — a weakness of the species, if 
not of the individual. 

Unless a perpetual miracle were to intercept 
the natural operation of common causes, reli- 
gion, not less than philosophy or poetry, will 
draw enthusiasts within its precincts. Nor, if we 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. V 

recollect on the one hand the fitness of the vast 
objects revealed in the Scriptures to affect the 
imagination, and on the other the wide diffusion 
of religious ideas, can it seem strange if it be 
found, in fact, that religious enthusiasts out-/ 
number any other class. It is also quite natural' 
that enthusiastic and genuine religious emotions 
should be intermingled with peculiar intricacy ; 
since the revelations which give them scope 
combine, in a peculiar manner, elements of gran- 
deur, of power, and of sublimity (fitted to kindle 
the imagination) with those ideas that furnish 
excitement to the moral sentiments. 

The religion of the heart, it is manifest, may 
be supplanted by a religion of the imagination, 
just in the same way that the social affections 
are often dislodged or corrupted by factitious 
sensibilities. Every one knows that an artificial 
excitement of all the kind and tender emotions of 
our nature may take place through the medium 
of the imagination. Hence the power of poetry 
and the drama. But every one must also know 
that these feelings, how vivid soever and seemingly 
pure and salutary they may be, and however nearly 
they may resemble the genuine workings of the 
soul, are so far from producing the same softening 
effect upon the character, that they tend rather 
to indurate the heart. Whenever excitements of 
any kind are regarded distinctly as a source of 
luxurious pleasure, then, instead of expanding 
the bosom with beneficent energy, instead of 



10 ENTHUSIASM, 

dispelling the sinister purposes of selfishness, 
instead of shedding the softness and warmth of 
generous love through the moral system, they 
become a freezing centre of solitary and unsocial 
indulgence ; and at length displace every emotion 
that deserves to be called virtuous. No cloak 
j of selfishness is in fact more impenetrable than 
that which usually envelops a pampered imagi- 
nation. The reality of woe is the very circum- 
stance that paralyses sympathy ; and the eye 
that can pour forth its flood of commiseration 
for the sorrows of the romance or the drama, 
grudges a tear to the substantial wretchedness 
of the unhappy. Much more often than not, 
this kind of luxurious sensitiveness to fiction is 
conjoined with a callousness that enables the sub- 
ject of it to pass through the affecting occasions 
of domestic life in immovable apathy : — the heart 
has become, like that of leviathan, " firm as a 
stone, yea, hard as a piece of the nether millstone." 
This process of perversion and of induration 
may as readily have place among the religious 
emotions as among those of any other class ; for 
the laws of human nature are uniform, whatever 
may be the immediate cause which puts them in 
action ; and a fictitious piety corrupts or petrifies 
the heart not less certainly than does a romantic 
sentimentality. The danger attending enthusiasm 
in religion is not then of a trivial sort ; and 
whoever disaffects the substantial matters of 
Christianity, and seeks to derive from it merely, 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 11 

or chiefly, the gratifications of excited feeling ; 
whoever combines from its materials a paradise 
of abstract contemplation, or of poetic imagery, 
where he may take refuge from the annoyances 
and the importunate claims of common life ; 
whoever thus delights himself with dreams, and 
is insensible to realities, lives in peril of awaking 
from his illusions when truth comes too late. 
The religious idealist, perhaps, sincerely believes 
himself to be eminently devout ; and those who 
witness his abstraction, his elevation, his enjoy- 
ments, may reverence his piety ; meanwhile this 
fictitious happiness creeps as a lethargy through 
the moral system, and is rendering him con- 
tinually less and less susceptible of those emotions 
in which true religion consists. 

Nor is this always the limit of the evil; for 
though religious enthusiasm may sometimes seem 
a harmless delusion, compatible with amiable 
feelings and virtuous conduct, it more often allies 
itself with the malign passions, and then produces 
the virulent mischiefs of fanaticism. Opportunity 
may be wanting, and habit may be wanting, but 
intrinsic qualification for the perpetration of the 
worst crimes is not wanting to the man whose 
bosom heaves with religious enthusiasm, inflamed 
by malignancy. If checks are removed, if incite- 
ments are presented, if the momentum of action 
and custom is acquired, he will soon learn to 
contemn every emotion of kindness or of pity, as 
if it were a treason against heaven, and will make 



12 ENTHUSIASM, 

it his ambition to rival the achievements, not of 
heroes, but of fiends. The amenities that have 
been diffused through society in modern times 
forbid the overt acts and excesses of fanatical 
feeling ; but the venom still lurks in the vicinity of 
enthusiasm, and may be quickened in a moment ; 
meantime, while smothered and repressed, it 
gives edge and spirit to those hundred religious 
differences which are still the opprobrium of 
Christianity. Whoever then admits into his 
bosom the artificial fire of an imaginative piety, 
ought first to assure himself that his heart har- 
bours no particle of the poison of ill-will. 

The reproach so eagerly propagated by those 
who make no religious pretensions, against those 
who do — that their godliness serves them as a 
cloak of immorality, is, to a great extent, calum- 
nious : it is also in some measure founded upon 
facts, which, though misunderstood and exag- 
gerated, give colour to the charge. When 
professors of religion are suddenly found to be 
wanting in common integrity, or in personal 
virtue, no other supposition is admitted by the 
world than that the delinquent was always a. 
hypocrite ; and this supposition is, no doubt, 
sometimes not erroneous. But much more often 
his fall has surprised himself, not less than others; 
and is, in fact, nothing more than the natural 
issue of a fictitious piety, which, though it might 
hold itself entire under ordinarv circumstances, 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 13 

gave way necessarily in the hour of unusual trial. U 
An artificial religion not only fails to impart to 
the mind the vigour and consistency of true 
virtue, but withdraws attention from those com- 
mon principles of honour and integrity which 
carry worldly men with credit through difficult 
occasions. The enthusiast is, therefore, of all- 
men the one who is the worst prepared to with- 
stand peculiar seductions. He possesses neither 
the heavenly armour of virtue, nor the earthly. 

It were an affront to reason, as well as to 
theology, to suppose that true and universal 
virtue can rest on any other foundation than the 
fear and love of God. The enthusiast, therefore, 
whose piety is fictitious, has only a choice of im- 
moralities, to be determined by his temperament 
and circumstances. He may become, perhaps, 
nothing worse than a recluse — a lazy contem- 
platist, and intellectual voluptuary, shut up from 
his fellows in the circle of profitless spiritual 
delights and conflicts. The times are indeed 
gone by when persons of this class might, in 
contempt of their species, and in idolatry of 
themselves, withdraw to dens, and hold society 
only with bats, and make the supreme wisdom to 
consist in the possession of a long beard, a filthy 
blanket, and a taste for raw herbs : but the 
same tastes, animated by the same principles, 
fail not still to find place of indulgence, even 
amid the crowds of a city : and the recluse whoi/ 
lives in the world will probably be more sour in 



14 ENTHUSIASM, 

temper than the anchoret of the wilderness. An 
ardent temperament converts the enthusiast into 
a zealot, who, while he is laborious in winning 
proselytes, discharges common duties very re- 
missly, and is found to be a more punctilious 
observer of his creed than of his word. Or, if 
his imagination be fertile, he becomes a visionary, 
who lives on better terms with angels and with 
seraphs, than with his children, servants, and 
neighbours : or he is one who, while he reve- 
rences the " thrones, dominions and powers" of 
the invisible world, vents his spleen in railing at 
all " dignities and powers " of earth. 

Superstition — the creature of guilt and fear, 
is an evil almost as ancient as the human family. 
But Enthusiasm, the child of hope, hardly ap- 
peared on earth until after the time when life and 
immortality had been brought to light by Chris- 
tianity. Hitherto, a cloud of the thickest gloom 
had stretched itself out before the eye of man as 
he trod the sad path to the grave ; and though 
poetry supplied its fictions, and philosophy its 
surmises, the one possessed little force, and the 
other could claim no authentication ; and there- 
fore neither had power to awaken the soul. But 
the Christian revelation not only shed a sudden 
splendour upon the awful futurity, but brought 
its revelations to bear upon the minds of men 
with all the pressure and intensity of palpable 
facts. The long slumbering sentiment of im- 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 15 

mortal hope — a sentiment natural to the human 
constitution, and chief among its passions, instead 
of being deluded, as heretofore, by dreams, was 
thoroughly aroused by the hand and voice of 
reality ; and human nature exhibited a new deve- 
lopment of the higher faculties. When there- 
fore, in the second century of the Christian era, 
various and vigorous forms of an enthusiasm, 
such as the world had hitherto never known, are 
seen to start forth on the stage of history, we 
behold the indications of the presence of Truth, 
giving an impulse to the human mind, both for 
the better and the worse, which no fictions of 
sages or poets had ever imparted. 

In proportion as the influence of Scriptural 
religion faded, the elder and the younger vice — 
Superstition and Enthusiasm, joined their forces 
to deform every principle and practice of Christi- 
anity, and in the course of four or five centuries, 
under their united operation, a faint semblance 
only of its primeval beauty survived; another 
period of five hundred years saw Superstition 
prevail, almost to the extinction, not only of true 
religion, but of Enthusiasm also ; and mankind 
fell back into a gloom as thick as that of the 
ancient polytheism. But at length the breath of 
life returned to the prostrate church, and the 
accumulated and consolidated evils of many ages 
were thrown off in a day. Yet as Superstition 
more than Enthusiasm had spoiled Christianity, 
she, chiefly, was recognized as the enemy of 



16 ENTHUSIASM, 

religion ; and the latter, rather than the former, 
was allowed to hold a place in the sanctuary 
after its cleansing. Since that happy period of 
refreshment and renovation, both vices have had 
their seasons of recovered influence ; but both 
have been held in check, and their prevalence 
effectually prevented. At the present time — we 
speak of protestant Christendom, the power of 
superstition is exceedingly small ; for the diffusion 
of general knowledge, and the prevalence of true 
religion, and not less, the influence of the infidel 
spirit, forbid the advances of an error which must 
always lean for support on ignorance and fear. 
Nor, on the other hand, can it be fairly affirmed 
that ours is eminently or conspicuously an age of 
religious enthusiasm. Yet as there are supersti- 
tions which still maintain a feeble existence under 
favour of the respect naturally paid to antiquity ; 
so are there also among us enthusiastic principles 
and practices, which, having been generated in a 
period of greater excitement than our own, are 
preserved as they were received from the fathers ; 
and seem to be in safe course of transmission 
to the next generation. 

But even if it should appear that — excepting 
individual instances of constitutional extrava- 
gance, which it would be absurd, because useless, 
to make the subject of serious animadversion, 
enthusiasm is not now justly chargeable upon 
any body of Christians, there would still be a 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 17 

very sufficient reason for attempting to fix the 
true import of the term, so long as it is vaguely 
and contumeliously applied by many to every 
degree of fervour in religion which seems to 
condemn their own indifference. Not indeed as 
if there were ground to hope that even the most 
exact and unexceptionable analysis, or the clearest 
definitions, would ever avail so to distinguish 
genuine from spurious piety as should compel 
irreligious men to acknowledge that the diffe- 
rence is real ; for such persons feel it to be indis- 
pensable to the slumber of conscience to confound 
the one with the other; and although a thousand 
times refuted, they will again, when pressed by 
truth and reason, run to the old and crazy 
sophism, which pretends that, because Christ- 
ianity is sometimes disfigured by enthusiasts and 
fanatics, therefore there is neither retribution nor 
immortality for man. It is the infatuation of 
persons of a certain character to live always at 
variance with wisdom on account of other men's 
follies ; and this is the deplorable error of those 
who will see nothing in religion but its corrup- 
tions. Nevertheless truth owes always a vindi- 
cation of herself to her friends, if not to her 
enemies; and her sincere friends will not wish 
to screen their own errors when this vindication 
requires them to be exposed. 

If, as is implied in some common modes of 
speaking, enthusiasm were only an error in 

c 



18 ENTHUSIASM, 

degree— a, mere fault by excess, then the attempt 
to establish a definite distinction between what 
is blameworthy and what is commendable in the 
religious affections — between the maximum and 
minimum, of emotion which sobriety approves, 
must be both hopeless and fruitless ; because we 
should need a scale adapted to every man's con- 
stitution ; for the very same amount of fervour 
which may be only natural and proper to one 
mind, could not be attained by another without 
delirium or insanity; and if this notion were just, 
every one would be entitled to repel the charge 
of either apathy or enthusiasm ; and while one 
might maintain, that if he were to admit into his 
bosom a single degree more of religious fervour 
than he actually feels, he should become an en- 
thusiast, another might offer an equally reason- 
able apology for the wildest extravagances. At 
this rate the real offenders against sober piety 
could never be convicted of their fault ; and in 
allowing such a principle we should only authen- 
ticate the scorn with which indifference loves to 
look upon sincerity. 

That the error of the enthusiast does not con- 
sist in an excess merely of the religious emotions, 
might be argued conclusively on the ground that 
the Scriptures, our only safe guide on such 
points, while they are replete with the language 
of impassioned devotion, and while they contain 
a multitude of urgent and explicit exhortations, 
tending to stimulate the fervency of prayer, offer 






SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 19 

no cautions against any such supposed excesses 
of piety. 

But, as matter of fact, nothing is more common 
than to meet with religionists whose opinions and 
language are manifestly deformed by enthusiasm, 
while their devotional feelings are barely tepid : 
languor, relaxation, apathy, not less than extra- 
vagance, characterise their style of piety; and it 
were quite a ludicrous mistake to warn such 
persons of the danger of being " religious' over- 
much." Yet it must be granted that those ex- 
tremes in matters of opinion or practice, which 
sometimes render even torpor conspicuous by its 
absurdities, have always originated with minds 
susceptible of high excitement. Enthusiasm, in 
a concrete form, is the child of vivacious temper- 
aments ; but when once produced, it spreads 
almost as readily through inert, as through 
active masses, and shews itself to be altogether 
separable from the ardour or turbulence whence 
it sprang. 

To depict the character of those who are en- 
thusiasts by physical temperament, is then a 
matter of much less importance than to define the 
errors which such persons propagate ; for, in the 
first place, the originators of enthusiasm are few, 
and the parties infected by it many ; and, in the 
second, the evil with the latter is incidental, 
and therefore may be remedied ; while with the 
former, as it is constitutional, it is hardly in any 
degree susceptible of correction. 

c2 



20 ENTHUSIASM, 

The examination of a few principal points will 
make it evident that a very intelligible distinction 
may, without difficulty, be established between 
what is genuine and what is spurious in religious 
feeling ; and when an object so important is 
before us, we ought not to heed the injudicious, 
and perhaps sinister, delicacy of some persons 
who had rather that truth should remain for ever 
sullied by corruptions, and exposed to the con- 
tempt of worldlings, than that themselves should 
be disturbed in their narrow and long-cherished 
modes of thinking. And yet there are some lesser 
misconceptions, perhaps, which it is more wise 
to leave untouched, than to attempt to correct 
them at the cost of breaking up habits of thought 
and modes of speaking connected indissolubly 
with truths of vital importance. It should also be 
granted, that, when those explanations or illus- 
trations of momentous doctrines which an expo- 
sure of the error of the enthusiast may lead us to 
propound, seem at all to endanger the simplicity 
of our reliance upon the inartificial declarations 
of Scripture, they are much better abandoned 
at once, although in themselves, perhaps, justi- 
fiable, than maintained, if in doing so we are 
seduced from the direct light of revelation, into 
the dim regions of philosophical abstraction. 

Christianity has in some short periods of its his- 
tory been entirely dissociated from philosophical 
modes of thought and expression ; and assuredly 
it has prospered in such periods. At other times 



SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 21 

it has scarcely been seen at all, except in the garb 
of metaphysical discussion; and then it has lost all 
its vigour and glory. In the present state of the 
world the primitive insulation of religious truth 
from the philosophical style is scarcely practica- 
ble ; nor indeed does it seem so desirable while, 
happily, we are in no danger of seeing the light 
of revelation again immured in colleges. But 
although it is inevitable, and perhaps not to be 
regretted, that religious subjects, both doctrinal 
and practical, should, especially in books, admit 
such generalities, every sober-minded writer will 
remember that it is not by an intrinsic and 
permanent necessity, but by a temporary con- 
cession to the spirit of the age, that this style is 
used and allowed. He will moreover bear in 
mind that the concession leans towards a side of 
danger, and will therefore always hold himself 
ready to break off from even the most pleasing 
or plausible speculation, when his Christian 
instincts, if the phrase may be permitted, give 
him warning that he is going remote from the 
vital atmosphere of scriptural truth. Whatever 
is practically important in religion or morals 
may at all times be advanced and argued in the 
simplest terms of colloquial expression. From 
the pulpit, perhaps, no other style should at 
any time be heard ; for the pulpit belongs to 
the poor and to the uninstructed. But the 
press is not bound by the same conditions, for it 
is an instrument of knowledge foreign to the 



22 



ENTHUSIASM, SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS. 



authenticated means of Christian instruction. A 
writer and a layman is no recognized func- 
tionary in the Church ; he may, therefore, choose 
his style without violating any rules or pro- 
prieties of office.* 



* See note at the end of the Volume. 



SECTION II. 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION, 



The most formal and lifeless devotions, not less 
than the most fervent, are mere enthusiasm, unless 
it be ascertained, on satisfactory grounds, that 
such exercises are indeed efficient means for pro- 
moting our welfare. Prayer is impiety, and praise 
a folly, if the one be not a real instrument of 
obtaining important benefits, and the other an 
authorized and acceptable offering to the Giver of 
all good. But when once these points are deter- 
mined, and they are necessarily involved in the 
truth of Christianity, then, whatever improprie- 
ties may be chargeable upon the devout, an error 
of incomparably greater magnitude rests with the 
undevout. To err in modes of prayer may be 
reprehensible ; but not to pray, is mad. And 
when those whose temper is abhorrent to religious 
services animadvert sarcastically upon the follies, 
real or supposed, of religionists, there is a sad in- 
consistency in such criticisms, like that which is 
seen when the insane make ghastly mirth of the 
manners or personal defects of their friends and 
keepers. 



24 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

The doctrine of immortality, as revealed in the 
Scriptures, gives at once reason and force to 
devotion ; for if the interests of the present life 
only, in which "one event happeneth to the just 
and to the unjust/' were taken into calculation, 
the utility of prayer could scarcely be proved, 
and never be made conspicuous, at least not to 
the profane. As matter of feeling, it is the ex- 
pectation of a more direct and sensible intercourse 
with the Supreme Being in a future life, that 
imparts depth and energy to the sentiments which 
fill the mind in its approaches to the throne of 
the heavenly Majesty. But the man of earth, 
who thinks himself rich when he has enjoyed the 
delights of seventy summers, and who deems the 
hope of eternity to be of less value than an hour 
of riotous sensuality, can never desire to penetrate 
the veil of second causes, or to " find out the 
Almighty." Glad to snatch the boons of the pre- 
sent life, he covets no knowledge of the Giver. 

Not so those into whose hearts the belief of a 
future life- — of such a future life as Christianity 
depicts, has entered. They feel that the promised 
bliss cannot possibly spring from an atheistic 
satiety of animal or even of intellectual pleasures ; 
but that the substance of it must consist in com- 
munion with him who is the source and centre 
of good. This belief and expectation sheds vigour 
through the soul while engaged in exercises of 
devotion ; for such employments are known to 
be the preparatives, and the foretastes, and the 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 25 

earnests of the expected " fulness of joy." The 
only idea which the human mind, under its pre- 
sent limitations, can form of a pure and perpetual 
felicity, free from all elements of decay and cor- 
ruption, is that which it gathers and compounds 
from devotional sentiments. In cherishing and 
expressing these sentiments, it grasps, therefore, 
the substance of immortal delights, and by an 
affinity of the heart holds fast the unutterable 
hope set forth in the Scriptures. The Scrip- 
tures being admitted as the word of God, this 
intensity of devotional feeling is exempted from 
all blame or suspicion ; nor can it ever be shown 
that the very highest pitch of such feelings is in 
itself excessive or unreasonable. The mischiefs 
of enthusiasm arise, not from the force or fervour, 
but from the perversion of the religious affections. 
The very idea of addressing petitions to Him 
who " worketh all things" according to the counsel 
of His own eternal and unalterable will, and the 
enjoined practice of clothing sentiments of piety 
in articulate forms of language, though these 
sentiments, before they are invested in words, are 
perfectly known to the Searcher of hearts, imply 
that, in the terms and the mode of intercourse 
between God and man, no attempt is made to lift 
the latter above his sphere of limited notions and 
imperfect knowledge. The terms of devotional 
communion rest even on a much lower ground 
than that which man, by efforts of reason and 
imagination, would fain attain to. Prayer, in its 



26 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

very conditions, supposes, not only a condescension 
of the divine nature to meet the human, but a 
humbling of the human nature to a lower range 
than it might reach. But the region of abstract 
conceptions, of lofty reasonings, of magnificent 
images, has an atmosphere too subtile to support 
the health of true piety ; and in order that the 
warmth and vigour of life may be maintained in 
the heart, the common level of the natural affec- 
tions is chosen as the scene of intercourse between 
heaven and earth. In accordance with this plan 
of devotion, not only does the Supreme conceal 
Himself from our senses, but He reveals in His 
word barely a glimpse of His essential glories. 
By some naked affirmations we are indeed secured 
against false and grovelling notions of the Divine 
Nature ; but these hints are incidental, and so 
scanty, that every excursive mind goes beyond 
them in its conceptions of the infinite attributes. 
Nor is it only the brightness of the Eternal 
throne that is shrouded from the view of those 
who are invited to draw near to Him that 
"sitteth thereon;" for the immeasurable distance 
that separates man from his Maker is carefully 
veiled by the concealment of the intervening 
orders of rational beings. Although the fact of 
such superior existences is clearly affirmed, no- 
thing more than the bare fact is imparted ; and 
we cannot misunderstand the reason and necessity 
of so much reserve ; for without it those free and 
kindly movements of the heart in which genuine 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 27 

devotion consists, would be overborne by impres- 
sions of a kind that belong to the imagination. 
Distance is understood only by the perception of 
intermediate objects. The traveller who, with 
weary steps, has passed from one extremity to 
the other of a continent, and whose memory is 
fraught with the recollection of the various scenes 
of the journey, is qualified to attach a distinct 
idea to the higher terms of measurement ; but 
the notion of extended space, formed by those 
who have never passed the boundary of their 
native province, is vague and unreal. Such are 
the notions which, with all the aids of astronomy 
and arithmetic, we form of the distances even of 
the nearest of the heavenly bodies. But if the 
traveller, who has actually looked upon the ten 
thousand successive landscapes that lie between 
the farthest west and the remotest east, could, 
with a sustained effort of memory and imagination, 
hold all those scenes in recollection, and repeat 
the voluminous idea with distinct reiteration until 
the millions of millions were numbered that 
separate sun from sun ; and if the notion thus 
laboriously obtained, could be vividly supported 
and transferred to the pathless spaces of the uni- 
verse, then, that prospect of distant systems which 
night opens before us, instead of exciting mild and 
pleasurable emotions of admiration, would rather 
oppress the imagination under a painful sense of 
the measured interval. If the eye, when it fixes 
its gaze upon the vault of heaven, could see, in 



|.VJf 



28 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

fancy, a causeway arched across the void, and 
bordered in long series with the hills and plains 
of an earthly journey — repeated ten thousand and 
ten thousand times, until ages were spent in the 
pilgrimage, then would he who possessed such a 
power of vision, hide himself in caverns rather 
than venture to look up to the terrible magnitude 
of the starry skies, thus set out in parts before 
him. 

And yet the utmost distances of the material 
universe are finite ; but the disparity of nature 
which separates man from his Maker is infinite ; 
nor can the interval be filled up or brought under 
any process of measurement. Nevertheless, in 
the view of our feeble conceptions, an apparent 
measurement or filling up of the infinite void 
would take place, and so the idea of immense 
separation would be painfully enhanced, if distinct 
vision were obtained of the towering hierarchy of 
intelligences at the basement of which the human 
system is founded. Were it indeed permitted to 
man to gaze upward from step to step, and from 
range to range, of the vast edifice of rational 
existences, and could his eye attain its summit, 
and then perceive, at an infinite height beyond 
that highest platform of created beings, the lowest 
beams of the Eternal throne, what liberty of heart 
would afterwards be left to him in drawing near 
to the Father of spirits ? How, after such a re- 
velation of the upper world, could the affectionate 
cheerfulness of earthly worship again take place ? 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 29 

Or how, while contemplating the measured vast- 
ness of the interval between heaven and earth, 
could the dwellers thereon come familiarly, as 
before, to the Hearer of prayer, bringing with 
them the small requests of their petty interests 
of the present life ? If introduction were had to 
the society of those beings whose wisdom has 
accumulated during ages which time forgets to 
number, and who have lived to see, once and 
again, the mystery of the providence of God 
complete its cycle, would not the impression of 
created superiority oppress the spirit, and obstruct 
its access to the Being whose excellences are 
absolute and infinite ? Or what would be the 
feelings of the infirm child of earth, if, when 
about to present his supplications, he found him- 
self standing in the theatre of heaven, and saw, 
ranged in a circle wider than the skies, the 
congregation of immortals ? These spectacles 
of greatness, if laid open to perception, would 
present such an interminable perspective of glory, 
and so set out the immeasurable distance between 
ourselves and the Supreme Being with a long 
gradation of splendours, that we should hence- 
forward feel as if thrust down to an extreme 
remoteness from the divine notice ; and it would 
be hard or impossible to retain, with any com- 
fortable conviction, the belief in the nearness of 
Him who is revealed as " a very present help in 
every time of trouble." But that our feeble 
spirits may not thus be overborne, or our faith 



30 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

and confidence baffled and perplexed, the Most 
High hides from our sight the ministries of his 
court, and, dismissing his train, visits with infinite 
condescension the lowly abodes of those who 
fear Him, and dwells as a Father in the homes 
of earth. 

Every ambitious attempt to break through 
the humbling conditions on which man may hold 
communion with God, must then fail of success ; 
since the Supreme has fixed the scene of worship 
and converse, not in the skies, but on earth. 
The Scripture models of devotion, far from en- 
couraging vague and inarticulate contemplations, 
consist of such utterances of desire, or hope, or 
love, as seem to suppose the existence of correla- 
tive feelings, and indeed of every human sympathy 
in Him to whom they are addressed. And although 
reason and Scripture assure us that He neither 
needs to be informed of our wants, nor waits to 
be moved by our supplications, yet will He be 
approached with the eloquence of importunate 
desire, and He demands, not only a sincere feeling 
of indigence and dependence, but an undissembled 
zeal and diligence in seeking the desired boons by 
persevering request. He is to be supplicated 
with arguments as one who needs to be swayed 
and moved, to be wrought upon and influenced ; 
nor is any alternative offered to those who would 
present themselves at the throne of heavenly 
grace, or any exception made in favour of supe- 
rior spirits, whose more elevated notions of the 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 31 

divine perfections may render this accommodated 
style distasteful. As the Hearer of prayer stoops 
to listen, so also must the suppliant stoop from 
the heights of philosophical or meditative abstrac- 
tions, and either come in genuine simplicity of 
petition, as a son to a father, or be utterly ex- 
cluded from the friendship of his Maker. 

This scriptural system of devotion stands 
opposed then to all those false sublimities of an 
enthusiastic pietism which affect to lift man into 
a middle region between heaven and earth, ere 
he may think himself admitted to hold com- 
munion with God. While the inflated devotee 
is soaring into he knows not what vagueness of 
upper space, He " whom the heaven of heavens 
cannot contain," has come down, and with benign 
condescension, has placed himself in the centre of 
the little circle of human ideas and affections. 
The man of imaginative, or of hyper-rational 
piety, is gone in contemplation where God is not ; 
or where man shall never meet him : for " the 
high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose 
name is holy, and who dwelleth in the high and 
holy place," when he invites us to his friendship, 
holds the splendour of his natural perfections in 
abeyance, and proclaims that " He dwells with 
the man who is of a humble and contrite spirit, 
to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive 
the heart of the contrite ones." Thus does the 
piety taught in the Scriptures make provision 
against the vain exaggerations of enthusiasm; and 






32 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

thus does it give free play to the affections of the 
heart ; while whatever might stimulate the ima- 
gination is enveloped in the thickest covering of 
obscurity. 

The outward forms and observances of worship 
are manifestly intended to discourage and exclude 
the false refinements of an imaginative piety, and 
to give to the religious affections a mundane, 
rather than a transcendental character. The 
congregated worshippers come into " the house 
of God/' the hall or court of audience, on the 
intelligible terms of human association ; and 
they come by explicit invitation from Him who 
declares that " wheresoever two or three are 
gathered together in his name, there He is" to 
meet them. And being so assembled, as in the 
actual presence of the " King of saints," they give 
utterance to the emotions of love, veneration, 
hope, joy, penitence, in all those modes of out- 
ward expression, which are at once proper to 
the constitution of human nature, and proper to 
be addressed to a being of kindred character and 
sympathies. Worship is planned altogether in 
adaptation to the limitations of the inferior party, 
not in proportion to the infinitude of the supe- 
rior : even the worship of heaven must be 
framed on the same principle ; for how high 
soever we ascend in the scale of created intelli- 
gence, still the finite can never surmount its 
boundaries, or at all adapt itself to the infinite. 
But the infinite may always bow to the finite. 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 33 

Those therefore who, inflated by enthusiasm, 
contemn and neglect the modes and style of 
worship proper to humanity, must find that, 
though indulgence is given to their affectation 
on earth, there can be no room allowed it in 
heaven. 

The dispensations of the divine providence 
towards the pious have the same tendency to 
confine the devout affections within the circle of 
terrestrial ideas, and to make religion always an 
occupant of the homestead of common feelings. 
% Many are the afflictions of the righteous," and 
wherefore, but to bring his religious belief and 
emotions into close contact with the humiliations 
of natural life, and to necessitate the use of 
prayer as a real and efficient means of obtaining 
needful assistance in distress ? If vague specu- 
lations or delicious illusions have carried the 
Christian away from the realities of earth, 
urgent wants or piercing sorrows presently 
arouse him from his dreams, and oblige him to 
come back to importunate prayer, and to un- 
affected praise. A strange incongruity may 
seem to present itself, when the sons of God — 
the heirs of immortality — the destined princes 
of heaven, are seen implicated in sordid cares, 
and vexed and oppressed by the perplexities of 
a moment ; but this incongruity strikes us only 
when the great facts of religion are viewed in 
the false light of the imagination ; for the process 

D 



34 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION, 

of preparation, far from being incompatible with 
these apparent degradations, requires them ; and 
it is by such means of humiliation that the hope 
of immortality is confined within the heart, and 
prevented from floating in the region of material 
images. 

We have said that, when an important object 
is zealously pursued in the use of means proper 
for its attainment, a mere intensity or fervour of 
feeling does not constitute enthusiasm. If there- 
fore prayer has a lawful object, whether temporal 
or spiritual, and is used in humble confidence of 
its efficiency as a means of obtaining the desired 
boon, or some equivalent blessing, there is no- 
thing unreal in the employment ; and, therefore, 
nothing enthusiastic. But there are devotional 
exercises which, though they assume the style 
and phrases of prayer, have no other object than 
to attain the immediate pleasures of excitement. 
The devotee is not in truth a petitioner ; for 
his prayers terminate in themselves ; and when 
he reaches the expected pitch of transient emo- 
tion, he desires nothing more. This appetite for 
feverish agitations naturally prompts a quest of 
whatever is exorbitant in expression or senti- 
ment, and as naturally inspires a dread of all 
those subjects of meditation which tend to abate 
the pulse of the moral system. If the language 
of humiliation is at all admitted into the enthu- 
siast's devotions, it must so be pointed with 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 35 

extravagance, and so blown out with exaggerations, 
that it serves much more to tickle the fancy than 
to affect the heart : it is a burlesque of penitence, 
very proper to amuse a mind that is destitute of 
real contrition. That such artificial humiliations 
do not spring from the sorrow of repentance, is 
proved by their bringing with them no lowliness 
of temper. Genuine humility would shake the 
whole towering structure of this enthusiastic 
pietism ; and, therefore, in the place of Christian 
humbleness of mind, there are cherished certain 
ineffable notions of self-annihilation, and self-re- 
nunciation, and we know not what other attempts 
at metaphysical suicide. If you receive the en- 
thusiast's description of himself, he has become, 
in his own esteem, by continued force of divine 
contemplation, infinitely less than an atom — a 
very negative quality — an incalculable fraction 
of positive entity : meanwhile the whole of his 
deportment betrays the sensitiveness of a self- 
importance ample enough for a god. 

Minds of superior order, and refined by cul- 
ture, may be full fraught with enthusiasm 
without exhibiting any very reprehensible extra- 
vagances ; for taste and intelligence conceal the 
offensiveness of error, as well as of vice. But it 
will not be so with the gross and the uneducated. 
These, if they are taught to neglect the substan- 
tial purposes of prayer, and are encouraged to 
seek chiefly the gratifications of excitement, will 
hardly refrain from the utterance of discontent, 

d2 



36 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

when they fail of success. Whatever physical or 
accidental cause may oppress the animal spirits, 
and so frustrate the attempt to reach the desired 
pitch of emotion, gives occasion to some sort of 
querulous altercation with the Supreme Being, 
or to some disguised imputation of caprice on 
the part of Him who is supposed to have with- 
held the expected spiritual influence. Thus the 
divine condescension in holding intercourse with 
man on the level of friendship, is abused in this 
wantonness of irreverence ; and the very same 
temper which impels a man of vulgar manners, 
when disappointed in his suit, to turn upon his 
superior with the language of rude opprobrium, 
is, in its degree, indulged towards the Majesty of 
heaven. " Thou thoughtest that I was alto- 
gether such an one as thyself," is a rebuke 
which belongs to those who thus affront the 
Most High with the familiarities of common 
companionship. We say not that flagrant abuses 
of this kind are of frequent occurrence, even 
among the uneducated ; yet neither are they 
quite unknown. A perceptible tendency towards 
them always accompanies the enthusiastic notion 
that the principal part of piety is excitement. 

The substitution of the transient and unreal, 
for the real and enduring objects of prayer, brings 
with it often that sort of ameliorated mysticism 
which consists in a solicitous dissection of the 
changing emotions of the religious life, and in a 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 37 

sickly sensitiveness, which serves only to divert 
attention from what is important in practical 
virtue. There are anatomists of piety who 
destroy all the freshness and vigour of faith and 
hope and charity, by immuring themselves, night 
and day, in the infected atmosphere of their own 
bosoms. But now let a man of warm heart, who 
is happily surrounded with the dear objects of 
the social affections, try the effect of a parallel 
practice; let him institute anxious scrutinies of 
his feelings towards those whom, hitherto, he has 
believed himself to regard with unfeigned love ; 
let him in these inquiries have recourse to all the 
fine distinctions of a casuist, and use all the pro- 
found analyses of a metaphysician, and spend 
hours daily in pulling asunder every complex 
emotion of tenderness that has given grace to the 
domestic life ; and, moreover, let him journalize 
these examinations, and note particularly, and 
with the scrupulosity of an accomptant, how 
much of the mass of his kindly sentiments he 
has ascertained to consist of genuine love, and 
how much was selfishness in disguise ; and let 
him, from time to time, solemnly resolve to be, 
in future, more disinterested and less hypocritical 
in his affection towards his family. What, at the 
end of a year, would be the result of such a pro- 
cess ? What, but a wretched debility and dejec- 
tion of the heart, and a strangeness and a sadness 
of the manners, and a suspension of the native 
expressions and ready offices of zealous affection ? 






38 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

Meanwhile the hesitations and the musings, and 
the upbraidings of an introverted sensibility 
absorb the thoughts. Is it then reasonable to 
presume that similar practices in religion can 
have a tendency to promote the healthful vigour 
of piety ? 

By the constitution of the human mind, its 
emotions are strengthened in no other way than 
by exercise and utterance ; nor does it appear 
that the religious emotions are exempted from 
this general law. The Divine Being is revealed 
to us in the Scriptures as the proper and supreme 
object of reverence, of love, and of affectionate 
obedience ; and the natural means of exercising 
and of expressing these feelings are placed before 
us, both in the offices of devotion, and in the 
duties of life ; just in the same way that the 
opportunities of enhancing the domestic affections 
are afforded in the constitution of social life. 
Why then should the Christian turn aside from 
the course of nature, and divert his feelings from 
their outgoings towards the supreme object of 
devotional sentiments, by instituting curious re- 
searches into the quality and quantity and com- 
position of all his religious sensations ? This 
spiritual hypochondriasis enfeebles at once the 
animal, the intellectual, and the moral life, and 
is usually found in conjunction with infirmity of 
judgment, infelicity of temper, and inconsistency 
of conduct. 

But it is alleged that the heart, even after it 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 39 

has undergone spiritual renovation, is fraught 
with hidden evils, which mingle their influence 
with every emotion of the new life, and that an 
incessant analysis is necessary in order to detect 
and to separate the lurking mischiefs. To know 
the evils of the heart is indeed indispensable to 
the humility and the caution of true wisdom ; 
and whoever is utterly untaught in this dismal 
branch of learning is a fool. But to make it the 
chief object of attention is not only unnecessary, 
but fatal to the health of the soul. 

The motives of the social, not less than those 
of the religious life, are open to corrupting mix- 
tures, which spoil their purity, and impair their 
vigour. As, for example, the emotion of bene- 
volence, which impels us to go in quest of misery, 
and to labour and suffer for its relief, is liable, in 
most men's minds, to be alloyed by some particles 
of the desire of applause ; indeed there are nice 
and learned anatomists of the heart, who assure 
us that benevolence, when placed in the focus of 
high optic powers, exhibits nothing but a gay 
feathery coat of vanity, set upon the flimsiness of 
selfish sensibility. Be it so — and let men of 
small souls amuse themselves with these pretty 
discoveries. But assuredly the philanthropist who 
is followed through life by the blessings of those 
" that were ready to perish," and whose memory 
goes down in the fragance of these blessings to 
distant ages, is not found to spend his days and 
nights in pursuing any such subtile micrologies. 



40 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

Have the sons of wretchedness been holpen by 
Rochefoucaulds and Bruyeres; or by Howards? 
If the philanthropist be a wise and Christian 
man, he will, knowing as he does the evils and 
infirmities of the heart, endeavour to expel and 
preclude the corrupting mischiefs that spring 
from within, by giving yet larger play and action 
to the great motives by which exclusively he 
desires to be impelled ; he will, with new intent- 
ness, devote himself to the service in which his 
better nature delights, and bring his soul into 
still nearer contact with its chosen objects, and 
oblige himself to hold more constant communion 
with the miserable ; and he will spurn, with 
renovated courage, the whispers of indolence and 
fear. Thus he pushes forwards on the course of 
action, where alone, by the unalterable laws of 
human nature, the vigour of active virtue may be 
maintained and increased. 

If the heart be a dungeon of foul and vaporous 
poisons, if it be " a cage of unclean birds," if 
" satyrs dance there," if the " cockatrice" there 
hatches her eggs of mischief, let the vault of 
dark impurity be thrown open to the purifying 
gales of heaven, and to the bright shining of 
the sun ; so shall the hated occupants leave 
their haunts, and the noxious exhalations be 
exhausted, and the deathly chills be dispelled. 
He, surely, need not want light and warmth 
who has the glories of heaven before him : let 
these glories be contemplated with constant and 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 41 

upward gaze> while the foot presses with energy 
the path of hope, and the hand is busied in every 
office of charity. The Christian who thus pur- 
sues his way, will rarely, if ever, be annoyed by 
the spectres that haunt the regions of a saddened 
enthusiasm. 

The moping sentimentalism which so often 
takes the place of Christian motives, is to be 
avoided, not merely because it holds up piety to 
the view of the world under a deplorable dis- 
guise ; nor merely because it deprives its victims 
of their comfort ; but chiefly because it ordinarily 
produces inattention to the substantial matters 
of common morality. The mind, occupied from 
dawn of day till midnight, with its own multifa- 
rious ailments, and busied in studying its patho- 
logies, utterly forgets, or remissly discharges, the 
duties of social life : or the temper, oppressed by 
vague solicitudes, falls into a state which makes 
it a nuisance in the house. Or, while the rising 
and falling temperature of the spirit is watched 
and recorded, the common principles of honour 
and integrity are so completely lost sight of, 
that, without explicit ill-intention, grievous de- 
linquencies are fallen into, which fail not to bring 
a deluge of reproach upon religion. These melan- 
choly perversions of Christian piety might seem 
not to belong, with strict propriety, to our sub- 
ject ; but in fact religious despondency is the 
child of religious enthusiasm. Exhaustion and 
dejection succeed to excitement, just as debility 



42 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

follows fever. Yesterday the unballasted vessel 
was seen hanging out all the gaiety of its colours, 
and spreading wide its indiscretion before a 
breeze ; but the night came, the breeze strength- 
ened, and to day the hapless bark rolls dismasted, 
without help or hope, over the billows. 

Amid the various topics touched upon by Paul, 
Peter, John, and James, we scarcely find an allu- 
sion to those questions of spiritual nosology which, 
in later periods, and especially since the days of 
Augustine,* and very much in our own times, 
have filled a large space in religious writings. 
The Apostles believed, with unclouded confidence, 



* The metaphysico-devotional " Confessions " of the good Bishop 
of Hippo may perhaps not unfairly be placed at the head of this very 
peculiar species of literature. The author is reluctant to name some 
modern works which he might deem liable to objection, on the ground 
of their giving encouragement to religious sentimentalism, lest he 
should put into the mouth of the irreligious a style of criticism which 
they would not fail to abuse. He is aware that he runs a hazard of 
this sort in advancing what he has above advanced. He can only say 
that he thinks the subject much too important in itself, and too inti- 
mately connected with the theme of this Essay, to be passed in silence. 
And he cautions the irreligious reader, if the book should fall into the 
hand of any such unhappy person, not to suppose that the author 
would either disparage the important duty of self-examination; or 
speak slightingly of those mental struggles which will ever attend the 
conflict between good and evil in the heart that has admitted the 
purifying influence of the Holy Spirit. What he pleads for, is, that 
self-examination should always have reference to the Christian stan- 
dard of temper and conduct ; and that spiritual conflicts should 
always consist of a resistance against evil dispositions or immoral 
practices. What he fears on the part of religious folks is, a forget- 
fulness of meekness, temperance, integrity, amid the illusions — now 
gloomy, now gaudy, of a diseased brain. 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 43 

the revelation committed to them, of judgment 
to come, of redemption from wrath by Jesus 
Christ, and of eternal glory : these great facts 
filled their hearts, and governed their lives ; and, 
in conjunction with the precepts of morality, were 
the exclusive themes of their preaching and 
writing. Evidently they found neither time nor 
occasion for entering upon nice analyses of mo- 
tives ; or for indulging fine musings and personal 
melancholies ; nor did they ever think of resting 
the all-important question of their own sincerity, 
and of their claim to a part in the hope of the 
gospel, upon the abstract dialectics which have 
since been thought indispensable to the definition 
of a saving faith. Assuredly the Christians of 
the first age did not suppose that volumes of 
metaphysical distinctions must be written and 
read before the genuineness of religious profes- 
sions could be ascertained. The want, in modern 
times, of a vivid conviction of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, is probably the occasional source of many 
of these idle and disheartening subtleties ; and it 
may be believed that a sudden enhancement of 
faith — using the word in its unsophisticated 
meaning, throughout the Christian community, 
would dispel, in a moment, a thousand dismal 
and profitless refinements, and impart to the 
feelings of Christians that unvarying solidity 
which naturally belongs to the perception of 
facts so immensely important as those revealed 
in the Scriptures. 



44 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

In witnessing, first, the entreaties, and sup- 
plications, and tears of a convicted, condemned, 
and repentant malefactor, prostrate at the feet of 
his sovereign ; and then the exuberance of his 
joy and gratitude in receiving pardon and life, no 
one would so absurdly misuse language as to call 
the intensity and fervour of the criminal's feelings 
enthusiastical ; for however strong, or even un- 
governable those emotions may be, they are 
perfectly congruous with the occasion : they 
spring from no illusion ; but are fully justified by 
the momentous turn that has taken place in his 
affairs: in the past hour he contemplated nothing 
but the horrors of a violent, an ignominous, and a 
deserved death : but now life with its delights is 
before him. It is true that all men in the same 
circumstances would not undergo the same in- 
tensity of emotion : but all, unless obdurate in 
wickedness, must experience feelings of the same 
quality. And thus, so long as the real circum- 
stances under which every human being stands 
in the court of the Supreme Judge are clearly 
understood, and duly felt, enthusiasm finds no 
place : all is real ; nothing illusory. But when 
once these unutterably important facts are for- 
gotten or obscured, then, by necessity, every 
enhancement of religious feeling is a step on the 
ascent of enthusiasm ; and it becomes a matter 
of very little practical consequence, whether the 
deluded pietist be the worshipper of some system 
of abstract rationalism, or of tawdry images, and 



ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 45 

rotten relics ; though the latter error of the two 
is perhaps, preferable, inasmuch as a warm- 
hearted fervour is always better than frozen pride. 

One commanding subject pervades the Scrip- 
tures, and rises to view on every page : this 
recurring theme, towards which all instructions 
and histories tend, is the great and anxious ques- 
tion of condemnation or acquittal at the bar of 
God, when the irreversible sentence shall come 
to be pronounced. " How shall man be just with 
God," is the inquiry ever and again urged upon 
the conscience of him who reads the Bible with 
a humble and teachable desire to find therein 
the way of life. In subserviency to this leading 
intention, the themes which run through the 
sacred writings, and which distinguish those 
writings by an immense dissimilarity from all 
the remains of polytheistic literature, are those of 
guilt, shame, contrition, love, joy, gratitude, and 
affectionate obedience. And moreover, in confor- 
mity with this same intention, the Divine Being 
is revealed — if not exclusively, yet chiefly, as the 
party in the great controversy which sin has 
occasioned. The intercourse, therefore, which is 
opened between heaven and earth is almost con- 
fined to the momentous transactions of recon- 
ciliation and renewed friendship. When the 
Hearer of prayer invites interlocution with man, 
it is not, as perhaps in Eden, for the purposes of 
free and discursive converse, but for conference 



46 ENTHUSIASM IN DEVOTION. 

on a special business. " Come now, let us reason 
together, saith the Almighty; though your sins 
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 

The same speciality of purpose and limitation 
of subject is plainly implied in the appointment 
of a Mediator and Advocate ; for although the 
establishment of this happy medium of approach 
authorizes and encourages even a boldness of 
access to the throne of the heavenly grace, it not 
less evidently imposes a restriction or peculiarity 
upon the intercourse between God and man. 
As the intercessor exercises his office to obtain 
the bestowment of the benefits secured to man- 
kind by his vicarious sufferings, the suppliant 
must surely have those benefits especially in view. 
The work and office of the Mediator, and the 
desires and petitions of the client, are correlatives. 
" No man," said the Saviour, " cometh unto the 
Father but by me." It follows then, naturally, 
that those who thus come to the Father should 
keep in constant remembrance the great inten- 
tion of the mediatorial scheme, which is nothing 
else than to reconcile transgressors to the offended 
Majesty of heaven. But this unalterable condi- 
tion of all devotional services contains a manifest 
and efficacious provision against enthusiastical 
excitements ; for the emotions of shame and peni- 
tence, and of joy in receiving the assurance of 
pardon, are not of the class with which the ima- 
gination has near affinity ; and, in a well-ordered 



ENTHUSIASM OF THE ROMISH WORSHIP. 47 

mind, they may rise to their highest pitch with- 
out either disturbing the powers of reason, or 
infringing the most perfect inward serenity, 
or outward decorum. In a word, it may be 
confidently affirmed that no man becomes an 
enthusiast in religion, until he has forgotten that 
he is a transgressor — a transgressor reconciled to 
God by mediation. 

But when, either by the refinements of ra- 
tionalism — a gross misnomer, or by superstitious 
corruptions, the central facts of Christianity have 
become obscured, no middle ground remains 
between the apathy of formality and the extrava- 
gance of enthusiasm. The substance of religion is 
gone and its ceremonial only remains — remains to 
disgust the intelligent and to delude the simple. 
This momentous principle is strikingly displayed 
in the construction of the Romish worship. That 
false system assumes the great business of pardon 
and reconciliation with God to be a transaction 
that belongs only to priestly negotiation ; and as 
forgiveness has its price, and the priest is at once 
the appraiser of the offence, and the receiver of 
the mulct, it would be an intrusion upon his 
function, an interference that must derange his 
balances, for the transgressor to act on his own 
behalf, or ever to inquire what passes between 
the authorized agent of mercy, and the court of 
heaven. No room then is left in this system for the 
great and central subject of all devotional exercises . 
The doctrine of pardon having been cut off from 



48 ENTHUSIASM 

worship, worship becomes unsubstantial. The 
expiatory death and availing intercession of the 
Son of God are taken within the rail of sacerdotal 
usurpation ; and of necessity, if Jesus Christ is at 
all to be set forth " crucified before the people," 
it can only be as an object of dramatic exhi- 
bition. This is the secret of the popish magni- 
ficence of worship. Music, and painting, and 
pantomime, and a tinsel declamation, must do 
their several parts to disguise the subduction of 
the essentials of devotion. The laity, having 
nothing to transact with God, must be amused 
and beguiled, "lest haply the gospel of His 
grace" should enter the heart, and so the trading 
intervention of the priest be superseded. 

The great purpose of the Romish worship, 
which is to preclude all genuine feelings by 
substituting the enthusiasm of the imagination, 
is accomplished, it must be confessed, with con- 
summate skill and a just knowledge of the hu- 
man mind. The end proposed will, manifestly, 
be best attained when the emotions which 
spring from the imagination are made to re- 
semble as nearly as possible those that belong 
to the heart. The nicest imitation will be the 
most successful in this machinery of delusion. 
Hence it is, that while all those means of excite- 
ment are employed which quicken the physical 
sensibilities, the deeper sensibilities of the soul 
are also addressed, and yet always by the inter- 
vention of dramatic or poetic images. A plain 



OF THE ROMAN WORSHIP. 49 

and undisguised appeal to the heart is unknown 
to the system. 

If it be for a moment forgotten, that in every 
bell, bowl, and vest of the Romish service, 
there is hid a device against the liberty and 
welfare of mankind, and that its gold, and 
pearls, and fine linen are the deckings of eter- 
nal ruin ; and if this apparatus of worship be 
compared with the impurities and the cruelties 
of the old polytheistic rites, great praise may 
seem due to its contrivers. Nothing in Chris- 
tianity that might subserve the purposes of 
dramatic effect has been overlooked ; even the 
most difficult parts of the materials have been 
wrought into keeping. The humiliations and 
poverty which shroud the glory of the principal 
personage, and the horrors of his death ; the 
awful beauty and compassionate advocacy of 
the virgin mother, the queen of heaven ; the 
stern dignity of the twelve ; the marvels of 
miraculous power ; the heroism of the martyrs ; 
the mortifications of the saints ; the punishment 
of the enemies of the church ; the practices of 
devils ; the intercession and tutelary cares of 
the blessed ; the sorrows of the nether world, 
and the glories of the upper ; — all these materials 
of poetic and scenic effect have been elaborated 
by the genius and taste of the Italian artists, 
until a spectacle has been got up which leaves 
the most splendid shows of the ancient idol- 

E 



50 ENTHUSIASM 

worship of Greece and Rome at a vast distance 
of inferiority.* 

But of what avail is all this sumptuous appa- 
ratus in promoting either genuine piety or purity 
of manners ? History and existing facts leave 
no obscurity on the question ; for the atrocity 
of crime, and the foulness of licentiousness, 
have ever kept pace with the perfection of the 
Romish service. Those nations upon whose 
manners it has worked its proper influence 
with the fullest effect, have been the most 
corrupt and the most debauched. Splendid 
rites and odious vices have dwelt in peace 
under the same consecrated roofs, and the 
actors and spectators of these sacred pantomimes 

* Strictly speaking, the religion of Greece was not eminently a 
religion of ritual splendour ; on the contrary, there reigned in the 
public services of the most intellectual of all nations much of the 
simplicity of devout fervour, much of the chasteness of fine taste, and 
much of the archaic and unadorned solemnity that had descended to 
the Greeks from the patriarchal ages. Even in their theatres and on 
their race-courses, there was far less of pomp and finery than is de- 
manded on similar occasions by a modern European populace. The 
Romans carried the sublime in decoration to a further point; and 
in the same degree exchanged reason and taste for colours, gild- 
ings, and draperies. Upon the Roman barbaric magnificence the 
corrupt church of the fifth and following centuries engrafted, in a 
confused medley, the gorgeous conceptions of the eastern nations — 
the terrible ideas of the northern hordes — the jugglings of Italian 
priests, and the sheer puerilities of monks and children. Such is 
the Christian worship of Rome ! Nevertheless, its elements comprise 
so much that is beautiful, or imposing, that its puerilities catch not 
the eye ; and a man must be very rational who altogether repels the 
impression of its services. 



OF POPULAR ORATORY. 51 

have been wont to rush together from the 
solemn pomps of worship to the chambers of 
filthy sin. 

The substitution of poetic enthusiasm for ge- 
nuine piety may however take place without the 
decorations of the Romish service ; but the 
means employed must be of a more intellectual 
cast: eloquence must take all the labour on 
itself, and must subject the doctrines of Scrip- 
ture to a process of refinement which shall deposit 
whatever is substantial and affecting, and retain 
only what is magnific, pathetic, or sublime. And 
yet the principles of protestantism, and, in some 
respects, the national temper, and certainly the 
spirit of the devotional services of the English 
church, all discourage the attempt to hold forth 
the subjects of evangelical teaching in the gor- 
geous colours of an artificial oratory. And if 
the evidence of facts were listened to, such 
attempts would never be made by men who 
honestly desire to discharge the momentous du- 
ties of the Christian ministry in the manner most 
conducive to the welfare of their hearers. A 
blaze of emotion having the semblance of piety, 
may be kindled by descriptive and impassioned 
harangues, such as those that are heard on days 
of festival from French and Italian pulpits ; but 
it will be found that the Divine Spirit, without 
whose agency the heart is never permanently 
affected, sternly refuses to become a party in any 

e 2 



52 ENTHUSIASM 

such theatric exercises; these emotions will 
therefore subside without leaving a vestige of 
salutary influence. 

Yet is there perhaps a lawful, though limited 
range open, in the pulpit, to the powers of de- 
scriptive eloquence. The preacher may safely 
embellish all those subsidiary topics that are not 
included within the circle of the primary prin- 
ciples on which the religious affections are built; 
for in addressing the imagination on these acces- 
sary points, he does not incur the danger of 
founding piety altogether upon illusions. The 
great and beautiful in nature, and perhaps the 
natural attributes of the Deity, and the episodes 
of sacred history, and the diversities of human 
character, and the scenes of social life, and the 
secular interests of mankind, may, by their in- 
cidental connexion with more important themes, 
furnish the means of awakening attention, and 
of varying the sameness of theological discourse. 
Or even if no unquestionable plea of utility 
could be urged in recommendation of such 
divertisements, at the worst they are not charge- 
able with the desecration of fundamental doc- 
trines ; nor do they generate delusion where 
delusion must be fatal. But it is not so with 
the principal matters of the preacher's message 
to his fellow-men, which can hardly be touched 
by the pencil of poetic or dramatic eloquence 
without incurring a hazard of the highest kind, 
inasmuch as the excitement so engendered 



OF POPULAR ORATORY. 53 

more often excludes, than merely impairs genuine 
feelings. 

If the taste of an audience be quickened and 
cultivated, nothing is more easy to the teacher, 
or more agreeable to the taught, than a transi- 
tion from the sphere of spiritual feeling to the 
regions of poetic excitement. Intellect is put in 
movement by the change ; conscience is lulled ; 
the weight that may have rested on the heart is 
upborne, and a state of animal elasticity induced, 
which, so long as it continues, dispels the sadness 
of earthly cares. Let it be supposed that the 
subject of discourse is that one which, of all 
others, should be the most solemnly affecting to 
those who admit the truth of Christianity— the 
awful process of the last judgment. The speaker, 
we will believe, intends nothing but to inspire a 
salutary alarm ; and with this view he essays his 
utmost command of language, while he describes 
— the sudden waning of the morning sun, the 
blackening of the heavens, the decadence of stars, 
the growing thunders of coming w r rath, the clang 
of the trumpet, whose notes break the slumbers 
of the dead : the crash of the pillars of earth, the 
bursting forth of the treasures of fire, and the 
solving of all things in the fervent heat. Then 
the bright appearance of the Judge, encircled by 
the splendours of the court of heaven ; the con- 
voked assemblage of witnesses from all worlds, 
filling the concave of the skies. Then the dense 
masses of the family of man, crowding the area 






54 ENTHUSIASM 

of the great tribunal; the separation of the 
multitude ; the irreversible sentence, the depar- 
ture of the doomed, the triumphant ascent of 
the ransomed. 

Compared with themes like these, how poor 
were the subjects of ancient oratory! And such 
is their force, such the freshness of their power, 
that though a thousand times presented to the 
imagination, they may yet again, whenever skil- 
fully managed, command breathless attention — 
while the sands of the preacher's hour are running 
out. Nor ought it to be absolutely affirmed that 
excitements of this kind can never produce salu- 
tary impressions ; or that such impressions never 
accompany the hearer beyond the threshold of 
the church, or survive a day's contact with secu- 
lar interests : peremptory assertions of this sort 
are unnecessary to our argument. The question 
to be answered is, whether this species of move- 
ment be not of the nature of mere enthusiasm, 
and whether it does not ordinarily rather exclude 
than promote religious feelings. 

In reference to the illustration we have ad- 
duced, there might be room for the previous 
inquiry, whether, on sound principles of inter- 
pretation, the language of Scripture ought to be 
understood as giving any warrant whatever to 
those material images of terrible sublimity with 
which it is usual to invest the proceedings of the 
future day of retribution. But let it be granted 
that the customary representations of popular 



OF POPULAR ORATORY. 55 

oratory are not erroneous ; and that when the 
preacher thus accumulates the physical machinery 
of terror,, he is truly picturing that last scene 
of the terrestrial history of man. Even then 
it were not difficult, by an effort of reasoning 
and of meditation, and by following out the 
emotions of our moral constitution, to realize 
the feelings which must fill the soul on that day 
when the secrets of all hearts shall be published; 
and these feelings may be imagined, on probable 
grounds of anticipation, to be such as must 
render all exterior perceptions dim, and make 
even the most stupendous magnificence of the 
surrounding scene, to fade from the sight. It is 
nothing but the present torpor of the moral sen- 
timents that allows to material ideas so much 
power to occupy and overwhelm the mind ; 
but when the soul shall be quickened from its 
lethargy, then, good and evil will take that seat 
of influence which has been usurped by unsub- 
stantial images of greatness, beauty, or terror. 
What are the thunderings of a thousand storms, 
what the clangour of the trumpet, or the crash 
of earth, or the universal blaze ; what the dazzling 
front of the celestial array ; or even the appalling 
apparatus of punishment, to the spirit that has 
become alive to the consciousness of its own 
moral condition, and is standing naked in the 
manifested presence of the High and Holy One ! 
That time of judgment, which is to dispel all 
disguises, and to drag sin from its coverts into the 



56 ENTHUSIASM 

full light of heaven, will assuredly find no moment 
of leisure for the discursive eye ; one perception, 
one emotion will doubtless rule exclusive in the 
soul. 

No extravagance or groundless refinement is 
contained in the supposition that, in the great 
day of inquiry and award, the moral shall so 
overwhelm the physical, that when, by regular 
process of evidence, according to the forms of 
that perfect court, conviction has been obtained 
of even some minor offence against the eternal 
laws of purity or justice— an offence, which, if 
confessed on earth, would hardly have brought a 
blush upon the cheek, the heart will be penetrated 
with an anguish of shame that shall preclude the 
perception of surrounding wonders : on that day 
it will be sin, not a flaming world, that shall 
appal the soul. 

If anticipations such as these approve them- 
selves to reason, it follows that the humblest and 
the least adorned eloquence of a purely moral 
kind, of which the only topics are sin and holiness, 
guilt and pardon, takes incomparably a nearer 
and a safer road towards the attainment of the 
great object of Christian instruction, than the 
most overwhelming oratory that addresses itself 
chiefly to the imagination. Nay, it may be 
affirmed that such oratory, however artfully ela- 
borated, and however well intended it may be, 
is nothing better than a curtain, finely wrought 
indeed with gorgeous colours, but serving to 



OF POPULAR ORATORY. 57 

hide from men the substantial terrors of the day 
of retribution. 

Nothing then can be more glaringly inequit- 
able than the manner in which the imputation of 
enthusiasm is frequently advanced in relation to 
pulpit oratory. On the ground, either of com- 
mon sense or of philosophical analysis, the epithet 
must be assigned to him who, in neglect or con- 
tempt of the substance of his argument, draws an 
idle and profitless excitement from its adjuncts. 
And on the same ground we must exculpate 
from such a charge the speaker who, however 
intense may be his fervour, is himself moved, and 
labours to move others, by what is most solid 
and momentous in his subject. Now to recur for 
a moment to the illustration already adduced. 
In the anticipations we may form of the day of 
judgment, there are combined two perfectly dis- 
tinct classes of ideas ; on the one side there are 
those images of physical grandeur and of dra- 
matic effect which offer themselves to the ima- 
ginative orator as the proper materials of his art, 
and which, if skilfully managed, will not fail to 
produce the kind of excitement that is desired 
by both speaker and hearer. On the other side 
there are, in these anticipations, the forensic pro- 
ceedings which form the very substance of the 
fearful scene ; and these proceedings, though of 
infinite moment to every human being, tend 
rather to quell than to excite the imagination, 
and therefore afford the preacher no means of 



58 CRITERION OF ENTHUSIASM. 

producing effect, or even of keeping alive atten- 
tion, unless the conscience of the hearer is 
alarmed, and his heart opened to the salutary 
impressions of fear, shame, and hope. In looking 
then at these themes, so distinct in their qualities, 
we ask — Is he the enthusiast who concerns him- 
self with the substance ; or he who amuses him- 
self and his hearers with the shadow ? Yet is it 
common to hear an orator spoken of as a sound 
and sober divine, who, for maintaining his influ- 
ence and popularity, depends exclusively, con- 
stantly, and avowedly upon his power to affect 
the imagination and the passions by poetic or 
dramatic images, and who is perpetually labour- 
ing to invest the solemn doctrines of religion in 
a garb of attractive eloquence. Meanwhile a less 
accomplished speaker, who — perhaps with more 
of vehemence than of elegance, insists simply 
upon the momentous part of his message, is 
branded as an enthusiast, merely because his 
fervour rises some degrees above that of others. 
Ineffable folly ! to designate as enthusiastical the 
intensity of genuine emotions, and to approve 
as rational mere deliriums of the fancy, which in- 
tercept the influence of momentous truths upon 
the heart. Yet such is the wisdom of the world ! 

It cannot be pretended that the distinction be- 
tween genuine and enthusiastic piety turns upon 
a metaphysical nicety : nothing so important 
to all men must be imagined to await the 



CRITERION OF ENTHUSIASM. 59 

determination of abstruse questions ; and if the 
distinction which has been illustrated in the pre- 
ceding pages is not perfectly intelligible, it may 
safely be rejected as of no practical value. But 
surely there can hardly be any one so little ob- 
servant of his own consciousness as not to have 
learned that the feelings excited by what is 
beautiful or sublime, terrible or pathetic, differ 
essentially from those emotions that are kindled 
in the heart by the ideas of goodness and of 
purity, or of malignancy and pollution. And 
every one must know that virtue and piety have 
their range among feelings of the latter, not of 
the former class ; and every one must perceive 
that if the former occupy the mind to the exclu- 
sion of the latter, the moral sentiments cannot 
fail to be impoverished or corrupted. It is 
moreover very evident that the great facts of 
Christianity possess, adjunctively, the means of 
exciting, in a powerful degree, the emotions that 
belong to the imagination, as well as those which 
affect the heart; it therefore follows that the 
former may, in whole or in part, supplant the 
latter ; and thus a fictitious piety be engendered, 
which, while it produces much of the semblance 
of true religion, yields none of its substantial 
fruits. In this manner it may happen, not in 
rare instances, but in many, that if, in the his- 
tory of an individual, a season of religious excite- 
ment has once taken place, though it had in it 
little or nothing of the elements of a change from 



60 CRITERION OF ENTHUSIASM. 

evil to good, it may have been assumed as con- 
stituting a valid and inamissible initiation in the 
Christian life ; and if subsequently the decencies 
of religion and of morality have been preserved, 
a strong supposition of sincerity is entertained 
to the last even though all was illusory. 

Yet these melancholy cases of self-deception 
are not to be remedied by mere explanations of 
the delusion ; on the contrary, the practical use 
to be made of definitions and distinctions and 
descriptions in matters of religious feeling, is to 
exhibit the necessity, and to enhance the value 
of more available tests of sincerity. Thus, for 
example, if it appear that, in times like the 
present, when religious profession undergoes no 
severe probation, the danger of substituting some 
species of enthusiasm for true piety is extreme, 
there will appear the greater need to have re- 
course to those means of proof which infallibly 
discriminate between truth and pretension. This 
means of proof is nothing else than the standard 
of morals and of temper exhibited in the Scrip- 
tures. No other method of determining the 
most momentous of all questions is given to us ; 
and none other is needed. We can neither as- 
cend into the heavens, there to inspect the book 
of life, nor satisfactorily descend into the depths 
of the heart to analyze the complex and occult 
varieties of its emotions. But we may instantly 
and certainly know whether we do the things 
which he whom we call Lord has commanded. 



SECTION III. 

ENTHUSIASTIC PERVERSIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

A sentiment natural to the human mind, leads 
it to entertain and to dwell with pleasure upon 
the belief of the stability and permanence of the 
material world. Whether we view the multiform 
ranks of organized and animated beings which 
cover the earth, or examine the occult processes 
of nature, or look upwards, and contemplate 
distant worlds, the regularity with wmich the 
great machine of the visible creation effects its 
revolutions, inspires a deep emotion of delight. 
This feeling brings with it involuntarily the sup- 
position of extended duration ; nor is it without 
extreme difficulty that we can separate the idea 
of so vast a combination of causes and effects, 
moving forward with unfailing precision, from 
the thought — if not of eternity, yet of unnum- 
bered ages gone by, and yet to come. While 
these natural impressions occupy the mind, a 
strange revulsion of feeling takes place, if sud- 
denly it is recollected that the massy pillars 
of creation, with its towering superstructure, 
and its high-wrought embellishments, and its 



62 DOCTRINE OF 

innumerable tenants, are absolutely destitute of 
intrinsic permanency, and that the stupendous 
frame, with its nice and mighty movements, is 
incessantly issued anew from the fount of being. 
Apart from the Divine volition, perpetually ac- 
tive, there can be no title to existence ; and in 
the moment which should succeed to the cessa- 
tion of the efficient will of the First Cause, all 
creatures must fall back to utter dissolution. 

Reason as well as faith justifies this doctrine, 
and demands that we deny independency to 
whatever is created, and devoutly confess that 
God is " all in all." In Him by whom they 
were formed, " all things consist : " in Him all 
"live and move and have their being." He is 
the author and giver of life ; and in the strictest 
sense it may be affirmed that every day is a day 
of creation, not less than that on which "the 
morning stars" uttered their earliest shout of 
joyous wonder : every moment during the lapse 
of ages, the word of power is pronounced from 
the height of the Eternal Throne — " let there be 
light" and life. This belief constitutes the base- 
ment-principle of all religion, and is the senti- 
ment from which piety must take its spring. 
The notion of independency and of eternity, 
suggested by the regular movements of nature, 
are thus thrown off from the surface of the 
visible world, and go to enhance our impressions 
of the glories of Him who alone is eternal, 
unchangeable and independent. 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 63 

But it is certain that the conditions of exist- 
ence, not less than its matter and form, are from 
God. In truth the notions of being, and of well- 
being, are not to be distinguished in reference to 
the Divine causation ; for each of His works is 
perfect, both in model and in movement. There 
is therefore no particle of virtue or of happiness 
in the universe, any more than of bare existence, 
of which God is not the author. Neither Scrip- 
ture nor philosophy permits exceptions or dis- 
tinctions to be made ; for if we attribute to the 
Creator the organ, we must also attribute to Him 
its functions, and its health too, which is only 
the perfection of its functions. And thus also, 
if the soul, with its complex apparatus of reason, 
and moral sentiment, and appetite, be the handy 
work of God, so is its healthful action. But the 
healthful action of the soul consists in love to 
God and free subjection to His will. Virtue is 
nothing else in its substance, nothing else in its 
cause. As in Him we live and move and have 
our being, so also it is He who " worketh in us 
to will and to do" whatever is pleasing to him- 
self. Whether we take the safe and ready method 
of acquiescing in the obvious sense of a multitude 
of Scriptures, or pursue the laborious deductions 
of abstract reasoning, the same conclusion is 
attained, that in the present world, and in every 
other where virtue and happiness are found, 
virtue and happiness are the emanations of the 
divine blessedness and purity. 



64 DOCTRINE OF 

But if this efflux of the Divine nature belongs 
to the original constitution of intelligent beings, 
and is the permanent and only source of all 
goodness and felicity, it must be intimately fitted 
to the movements of mind, and must harmonize 
perfectly with its mechanism ; just as perfectly 
as the creative influence harmonizes with the 
mechanism and movements of animal life. 

Whatever is vigorous and healthful in the 
one kind of existence, or holy and happy in the 
other, is of God, whose power and goodness are, 
throughout the universe, the natural, not the 
supernatural cause of whatever is not evil. It 
were then a strange supposition to imagine that 
this impartation of virtue and happiness may be 
perceptible to the subject of it, like the access of 
a foreign and extraordinary influence ; or that 
while the creative agency is altogether undis- 
tinguishable amid the movements of animal and 
intellectual life, the spiritual agency which con- 
veys the warmth and activity of virtue to the 
soul, is otherwise than inscrutable in its mode of 
operation. As the one kind of divine energy 
does not display its presence by convulsive or 
capricious irregularities, but by the unnoticed 
vigour and promptitude of the functions of life; so 
the other energy cannot, without irreverence, be 
thought of as making itself felt by extra-natural 
impulses, or sensible shocks upon the intellectual 
system ; but must rather be imagined as an 
equable pulse of life, throbbing from within, 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 65 

and diffusing softness, sensibility and force 
through the soul. 

It is indeed true that if death or torpor has 
long held the moral powers in suspended action, 
the returning principle of life, while working its 
way in contrariety to the inveterate derange- 
ments of the system, may make itself felt other- 
wise than where no such derangement has 
existed ; yet will it only be perceived by its 
collision with the evils that have usurped the 
heart ; not by its spontaneous movements. 
These are, in truth, the foreign and disturbing 
influences ; it is these that make themselves 
known by their abrupt and capricious activity, by 
their convulsive or feverish force. Meanwhile 
the heavenly emanation which heals, cleanses, 
and blesses the spirit is still, and constant, and 
transparent, as " a well of water springing up 
unto eternal life." 

Nevertheless, from the accidents of the position 
in which we are placed, the divine influence may 
appear under an aspect immensely unlike that in 
which we should view it, if our prospect of the 
intelligent universe were more extended than it 
is. Thus the sad tenant of a dungeon, who has 
spent the days of many years alive in the dark- 
ness of the tomb, thinks otherwise of the light of 
the sun, as he watches the pencil ray that tra- 
verses his prison wall, than those do who walk 
abroad amid the splendours of the summer's 
noon. Or we may imagine a world of once 

F 



66 DOCTRINE OF 

animated beings to be lying in the coldness and 
corruption of death, and we may suppose that 
the creative power returns and reanimates some 
among the dead, restoring them instantaneously 
to the warmth, and vigour, and enjoyments of 
life. The spectator of this partial resurrection, 
who had long contemplated nothing but the 
dismal stillness and corruption of the universal 
death, might, in his glad amazement, forget that 
the death of so many, not the life of the few, is 
anomalous, and strange, and contrary to the 
order of nature. The miracle, if so he will term 
it, is nothing more — nothing else, than what is 
every instant taking place throughout the wide 
realms of happy and virtuous existence. The 
life-giving energy, whose beams of expansive 
beneficence had been for a while, and in this 
world of death, intercepted or withdrawn, has 
returned with a kindling revulsion to its wonted 
channel ; and now moves on in copious tranquil- 
lity. And yet the dead may out-number the 
living; nevertheless the condition of the former, 
not that of the latter, is extraordinary ; and the 
return to life, how amazing soever it may seem, 
could with no propriety be called supernatural. 

The language of Scripture, when it asserts the 
momentous doctrine of the renovation of the 
soul by the immediate agency of the Spirit of 
God, employs figurative terms which, while they 
give the utmost possible force to the truth so 
conveyed, indicate clearly the congruity of the 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 67 

change with the original construction of human 
nature. The return to virtue and happiness is 
termed — a resurrection to life ; or it is a new 
birth ; or it is the opening of the eyes of the 
blind, or the unstopping the ears of the deaf; or 
it is the springing up of a fountain of purity ; or 
it is a gale of heaven, neither seen nor known 
but by its effects ; or it is the growth and fructi- 
fication of the grain ; or it is the abode of a 
guest in the home of a friend, or the residence 
of the Deity in His temple. Each of these em- 
blems, and all others used in the Scriptures in 
reference to the same subject, combines the 
double idea of a change — great, definite, and 
absolute ; and of a change from disorder, corrup- 
tion, derangement, to a natural and permanent 
condition : they are all manifestly chosen with 
the intention of excluding the idea of a miracu- 
lous or semi-miraculous intervention of power. 
On the one hand, it is evident that a change of 
moral dispositions, so entire as to be properly 
symbolized by calling it a new birth, or a resur- 
rection to life, must be much more than a self- 
effected reformation ; for if it were nothing more, 
these figures would be preposterous, unnecessary, 
and delusive. But on the other hand, this change 
must be perfectly in harmony with the physical 
and intellectual constitution of human nature, 
or the same figures would be devoid of propriety 
and significance. 

But a doctrine of divine influence like this, 
f 2 



68 PERVERSIONS OF 

though so full of promise and of comfort to the 
aspirant after true virtue, offers nothing to those 
who desire transitory excitements, and who look 
for visible displays of supernatural power; and 
therefore it does not satisfy the religious enthu- 
siast. Not content to be the recipient of an 
invigorating and purifying emanation, which, 
unseen and unperceived, elevates the debased 
affections, and fixes them on the Supreme Excel- 
lence ; nor satisfied to know that, under this 
healing influence, the inveteracy of evil dispo- 
sitions is broken up, and a real advance made in 
virtue, he asks some sensible evidence of the in- 
dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and would fain so 
dissect his own consciousness as to bring the 
presence of the Divine agent under palpable 
examination. Or he seeks for some such extra- 
ordinary turbulence of emotion as may seem 
unquestionably to surpass the powers and course 
of nature. Fraught with these wishes, he con- 
tinually gazes upon the variable surface of his 
own feelings, in unquiet expectation of a super- 
natural troubling of the waters. The silent rise 
of the well-spring of purity and peace he neither 
heeds nor values ; for nothing less than the 
eddies and sallies of religious passion can assure 
him that he is " born from above." 

A delusive notion of this kind at once diverts 
attention from the cultivation and practice of 
the virtues, and becomes a fermenting principle 
of frothy agitations, that either work them- 



THIS DOCTRINE. 



69 



selves off in the sourness of an uncharitable 
temper, or are followed by physical melancholies, 
or perhaps by such a relaxation of the moral 
sentiments as leaves the heart exposed to the 
seductions of vicious pleasure. Thus the reli- 
gious life, instead of being a sunshine of aug- 
menting peace and hope, is made up of an 
alternation of ecstacies and despondencies; or 
worse, of devotional fervours and of sensual 
indulgences. The same error naturally brings 
with it a habit of referring to other, and to 
much less satisfactory tests of Christian charac- 
ter than the influence of religion upon the 
temper and conduct. So it happens that prac- 
tical morality, from being slighted as the only 
valid credential of profession, comes, too often,, 
to be thought of as something which, though it 
may be well in its way, is a separable adjunct of 
true piety. 

The rate of general feeling that exists at any 
time in a community measures the height to 
which the exorbitances of enthusiasm may attain;, 
thus in times of peculiar excitement a perverted 
notion of Divine influence is seen to ripen into 
the most fearful excesses. In such seasons it 
is not enough that the presence of the Holy 
Spirit should be indicated by unusual com- 
motions of the mind ; but convulsions of the 
body also are demanded in proof of the hea- 
venly agency. Extravagance becomes glut- 
tonous of marvels ; religion is transmuted into 






70 PERVERSIONS OF 

pantomime : delirium and hypocrisy, often found 
to be good friends, take their turns of triumph ; 
while humility, meekness, and sincerity, are 
trodden down in the rout of impious confusion. 
Deplorable excesses of this kind happily are 
infrequent, and never of long continuance; but 
it has happened more than once in the history 
of Christianity that the habit of grimace in 
religion, having established itself in an hour 
of fanatical agitation, and become associated, 
perhaps, with momentous truths, as well as with 
the distinguishing tenets of a sect, has long 
survived the warmth of feeling in which it ori- 
ginated, and whence it might derive some 
apology, and has passed down from father to 
son, a hideous mask of formality, worshipped 
by the weak, and loathed, though not discarded, 
by the sincere. Meanwhile an hereditary or a 
studied agitation of the voice and muscles, most 
ludicrous, if it were not most horrible to be 
seen, is made to represent before the world 
the sacred and solemn truth, a truth essential 
to Christianity, that the Spirit of God dwells 
in the hearts of Christians. Whatever special 
interpretation may be given to our Lord's awful 
announcement concerning the sin against the 
Holy Ghost, an announcement which stands 
out as an anomaly in the midst of his declara- 
tions of mercy, every devout mind must regard 
it as shedding a fearful penumbra of warning 
around the doctrine of divine influence, and 



THIS DOCTRINE. 71 

will admit an apprehension lest he should, by 
any perversion of that doctrine, approach the 
precincts of so tremendous a guilt, or become 
liable to the charge of giving occasion in others 
to unpardonable blasphemies. 

If it be true that the agency of the Holy Spirit 
in renovating the heart is perfectly congruous 
with the natural movements of the mind, both 
in its animal and intellectual constitution, it is 
implied that whatever natural means of suasion, 
or of rational conviction, are proper to rectify 
the motives of mankind, will be employed as 
concomitant, or second causes of the change. 
These exterior and ordinary means of amend- 
ment are, in fact, only certain parts of the entire 
machinery of human nature ; nor can it be 
believed that its Author holds in light esteem His 
own wisdom of contrivance ; or is at any time 
obliged to break up or to contemn the mechanism 
which He has pronounced to be " very good." 
That there actually exists no such intention or 
necessity is declared by the very mode and form 
of revealed religion ; for this revelation consists 
of the common materials of moral influence — 
argument, history, poetry, eloquence. The same 
divine authentication of the natural modes of in- 
fluence, is contained in the establishment of the 
Christian ministry, and in the warrant given to 
parental instruction. These institutions concur 
to proclaim the great law of the spiritual world, 



72 PERVERSIONS OF 

that the heavenly grace which reforms the soul 
operates constantly in conjunction with second 
causes and ordinary means. In an accommo- 
dated, yet legitimate sense of the words, it may 
be affirmed of every such cause, that the " powers 
that be are of God; there is no power but of His 
ordaining; and whosoever resisteth (or would 
supersede) the power, resisteth the ordinance of 
God." 

No one can doubt the possibility, abstractedly, 
of the immediate agency of the Omnipotent 
Spirit of Grace without the intervention of 
means ; nor does any one doubt the power of 
God to support human life without aliments ; 
for " man liveth not by bread alone." But in 
neither case does He adopt this mode of inde- 
pendent operation: on the contrary, the Divine 
conduct, wherever we can trace it, is seen to 
approve much more the settled arrangements 
of wisdom, than the bare exertions of power. 
The treasures of that wisdom are surely never 
exhausted, nor can a case arise in which an im- 
mediate effort of Omnipotence becomes necessary 
merely to supply the lack of instruments. Nor 
does the vindication of the honours of Sovereign 
Grace need any such naked interpositions ; for 
the absolute necessity of an efficient power above 
that which resides in the natural means of suasion 
is abundantly proved, on the one hand, by the 
frequent inefficacy of these means, when employed 
under the most favourable circumstances ; and 



THIS DOCTRINE. 



on the other, by the frequent efficacy of means 
apparently inadequate to the production of the 
happy changes which result from them. It is 
not only affirmed by Scripture, but established 
by experience, that "neither he that planteth, 
nor he that watereth, is any thing ;" and at the 
same time it is affirmed by the one, and esta- 
blished by the other, that, apart from the plant- 
ing and the watering of the husbandman, God 
giveth no increase. 

No persuasion or instruction, we are assured, 
can of itself, in any one instance, avail to pene- 
trate the death-like indifference of the human 
mind towards spiritual objects ; but when once 
this torpor is removed by inscrutable grace, then 
the very feeblest and most inadequate means are 
sufficient for effecting the renovation of the 
heart. A single phrase, speaking of judgment 
to come, lisped by a child, will prove itself of 
power to awaken the soul from the slumber of 
the sensual life, if, when the sound falls on the 
ear, the spirit be quickened from above. In 
such a case it were an error to affirm that the 
change of character was effected independently 
of external means ; for though they were dis- 
guised under a semblance of extreme feebleness, 
and were such as might be easily overlooked or 
forgotten, they had in themselves the substantial 
powers of the highest eloquence ; and what 
might have been added to the momentous truth, 
so feebly announced, would have been little 



74 PERVERSIONS OF 

more than embellishment, like the embroideries 
and embossments of the warrior's garniture, 
which add nothing to the vigour of his arm. 

Two causes seem to have operated in main- 
taining the notion that divine influence is disso- 
ciated from concurrent means of suasion; the 
first of these is an ill-judged but excusable 
jealousy on the part of pious persons for the 
honour of Sovereign Grace ; and is a mere re- 
action upon orthodoxy from the Pelagian and 
semi-Pelagian heresies : such persons have 
thought it necessary for the safety of a most 
important doctrine, not merely to assert the su- 
premacy of the ultimate agent ; but to disparage, 
as much as possible, all intermediate instruments. 
The second of these causes is the imaginary 
difficulty felt by those who having unadvisedly 
plunged into the depths of metaphysical theology, 
when they should have busied themselves only 
with the plain things of religion, fail in every 
attempt to adjust their notions of divine aid and 
human responsibility ; and, therefore, if they would 
be zealous for the honour due to the first, think 
themselves obliged almost to nullify the second. 
If any such difficulty actually exists, it should be 
made to rest upon the operations of nature, 
where it meets us not less than in the precincts 
of theology ; and the husbandman should desist 
from his toils until schoolmen have demonstrated 
to him the rationale of the combined operation 
of first and second causes. Or if such a demon- 



THIS DOCTRINE. 75 

stration must not be waited for, and if the hus- 
bandman is to commit the precious grain to the 
earth, and to use all his skill and industry in 
favouring the inscrutable process of nature, then 
let the theologian pursue a parallel course, satis- 
fied to know that while the Scriptures affirm in 
the clearest manner whatever may enhance our 
ideas of the necessity and sovereignty of divine 
grace, they no where give intimation of a sus- 
pended, or halved responsibility on the part of 
man ; but, on the contrary, use, without scruple, 
language which implies that the spiritual welfare 
of those who are taught, depends on the zeal 
and labours of the teacher, as truly as the tem- 
poral welfare of children depends on the in- 
dustry of a father. The practical consequences 
of such speculative confusions are seen in the 
frightful apathy and culpable negligence of some 
instructors and parents, who, because a meta- 
physical problem, which ought never to have 
been heard of beyond the walls of colleges, 
obstructs their understandings, have acquired 
the habit of gazing with indifference upon the 
profaneness and immoralities of those whom 
their diligence might have retained in the path 
of piety and virtue. 

Another capital perversion remains to com- 
plete the enthusiastic abuse of the doctrine of 
divine influence ; and this is the supposition that 
those heavenly communications to the soul which 



76 PERVERSIONS OF 

form a permanent constituent of the Christian 
dispensation, are not always confined to the 
matter or to the rule of Scripture, and that the 
favoured subject of this teaching, at least when 
he has made considerable advances in the divine 
life, is led on a high path of instruction, where 
the written revelation of the will of God may be 
neglected or scorned. This impious delusion 
assumes two forms : the first is that of the 
tranquil contemplatist, the whole of whose reli- 
gion is inarticulate and vague, and who neglects 
or rejects the Scriptures, not so much because 
he is averse to its truths, as because the misti- 
ness of his sentiments abhors whatever is dis- 
tinct, and definite, and fixed. To read a plain 
narrative of intelligible facts, and to derive prac- 
tical instruction therefrom, implies a state of 
mind essentially different from that which he 
finds it necessary to his factitious happiness to 
maintain : before he can thus read his Bible 
in child-like simplicity he must forsake the re- 
gion of dreams, and open his eyes to the world 
of realities : in a word, he must cease to be an 
enthusiast. 

The other form of this delusion should excite 
pity rather than provoke rebuke ; and calls for 
the skill of the physician, more than for the in- 
structions of the theologian. The limits of in- 
sanity have not yet been ascertained ; perhaps 
it has none ; and certainly there are facts that 
favour the belief that the interval between 



THIS DOCTRINE. 77 

common weakness of judgment and outrageous 
madness is filled up by an insensible gradation 
of absurdity, no where admitting of a line of 
absolute separation. Where, for example, shall 
we pause, and separate the sane from the insane, 
among those who believe themselves to be fa- 
voured perpetually with special, particular, and 
ultra-scriptural revelations from heaven ? The 
most modest enthusiast of this class, and the 
most daring visionary, stand together on the 
same ground of outlawry from common sense 
and scriptural authority ; and though their se- 
veral offences against truth and sobriety may be 
of greater or less amount, they must both be 
dealt with on the same principle ; for both have 
alike excluded themselves from the benefit of 
appeal to the only authorities known among the 
sane part of mankind, namely, reason and Scrip- 
ture : those who reject both surrender themselves 
over to pity — and compulsion. 

It would manifestly be better that men should 
be left to the darkness and wanderings of unas- 
sisted reason, than that they should receive the 
immediate instructions of heaven, unless they 
possess at the same time a public and fixed rule 
to which all such supernatural instructions are 
to be conformed, and by which they are to be 
discriminated; for the errors of reason, how 
great soever they may be, carry with them no 
weight of divine authority : but if the doctrine 
of divine communications be admitted, and 



78 PERVERSIONS OF THIS DOCTRINE. 

admitted without reference to a public and 
permanent standard of truth, then every extra- 
vagance of impiety may claim a heavenly origin ; 
and who shall venture to rebuke even the 
most pestilent error ; for how shall the reprover 
assure himself that he is not fighting against 
God? 

It has already been affirmed that enthusiasm, 
far from being necessarily or invariably con- 
nected with fervour of feeling, is often seen to 
exist in its wildest excesses conjoined with the 
most frigid style of religious sentiment. Thus, 
for example, the three egregious perversions of 
the doctrine of divine influence, which have been 
described in the preceding pages, are maintained, 
and have been professed and defended during 
several generations, by a sect remarkable, if not 
for the chilliness, at least for the stillness of its 
piety, and its contempt of the natural expres- 
sions of devotional feeling; and even for a pecu- 
liar shrewdness of good sense in matters of 
worldly interest. But the incongruities of human 
nature are immense and incalculable ; or it 
would not be seen that general intelligence, and 
amiable manners, and Christian benevolence, 
are often linked with errors which, when viewed 
abstractedly, seem as if they could belong only 
to minds lost to wisdom and piety. 



SECTION IV. 

ENTHUSIASM THE SOURCE OF HERESY. 

The creed of the Christian is the fruit of ex- 
position : no part of it is elaborated by processes 
of abstract reasoning ; no part is furnished by 
the inventive faculties. To ascertain the true 
meaning of the words and phrases used by those 
who " spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost," is the single aim of the studies of the 
theologian. Interpretation is his function. But 
the work of interpretation, considered as an 
intellectual employment, differs essentially from 
that of the student of physical or abstract 
science; for it neither needs nor admits of the 
ardour by which those pursuits are animated. 
Nor has nature furnished the faculties that are 
employed in the labour of expounding the terms 
of ancient documents with any very vivid sus- 
ceptibility of pleasurable excitement. The toils 
of the lawyer, of the philologist, and of the theo- 
logian, must therefore be sustained by a refer- 
ence to some substantial motive of utility ; and 
though there may be a few minds so peculiarly 
constituted as to cultivate these studies with 



80 THE ENTHUSIASM 

enthusiastic ardour from the pure impulse of 
native taste, the ranks of a numerous body of 
men can never be filled up by spontaneous 
labourers of this sort. 

Christianity, being as it is, exclusively a re- 
ligion of documents and of interpretation, must 
utterly exclude from its precincts the adventu- 
rous spirit of innovation. Theology offers no 
field to men fond of intellectual enterprise : the 
Church has no work for them; or none until they 
have renounced the characteristic propensity of 
their mental conformation. True Religion, un- 
like human Science, was given to mankind in a 
finished form, and is to be learned, not im- 
proved ; and though the most capacious human 
mind is nobly employed while concentrating all 
its vigour upon the acquirement of this docu- 
mentary learning, it is very fruitlessly, and very 
perniciously occupied in attempting to give it a 
single touch of amendment. 

The form under which Christianity now pre- 
sents itself as an object of study does, in a much 
greater degree, discourage and prevent specula- 
tion and novelty, than it did in the early ages; 
and in fact, if all the varieties of opinion which 
have appeared during the eighteen centuries of 
Church history are numbered, a large majority 
of them will be found to belong to the first three 
centuries, and to the eastern church. That is to 
say, to the period when doctors of theology, 
possessing the rule of faith in their vernacular 



OF HERESY. 81 

tongue, had no other intellectual employment than 
either to invent novelties of doctrine, or to refute 
them. Other causes may, no doubt, fairly be 
alleged as having had influence in quickening 
that prodigious efflorescence of heretical doctrine 
which infected the whole atmosphere of Chris- 
tianity in the east during the second and third 
centuries, and at a time when the western church 
maintained, in a high degree, the simplicity of 
Scriptural faith ; but the cause above-mentioned 
ought not to be ranked among the least efficient. 
But theology in modern times offers an un- 
bounded field of toil to the student ; the toil of 
mere acquisition and of critical research ; for a 
familiar knowledge of three languages, at least, is 
indispensable to every man who would take re- 
spectable rank as a teacher of Christianity; espe- 
cially to every one who aspires to distinction in 
his order; and some acquaintance with two or 
three other languages, is also an object of reason- 
able ambition to the theological student. And 
moreover, an accomplished expounder of Scripture 
must be well versed in profane and church his- 
tory ; nor may he be entirely ignorant of even the 
abstract and physical sciences. These multifarious 
pursuits, which are to be acquired compatibly with 
the discharge of the public duties of the pastoral 
office, assuredly furnish employment enough for 
the most active and the most industrious mind 
long beyond the period of college initiation. 
Nor are we to calculate merely upon the natural 



82 THE ENTHUSIASM 

influence produced upon the intellectual habits 
by these employments, in preventing that dis- 
cursiveness of the inventive faculties which is a 
principal source of heresy ; for its quality, not less 
than its quantity, is decidedly corrective of the 
propensity to generate novelties of opinion. 

Every one who has made the experiment well 
knows that the toils of learned acquisition have 
a direct tendency to impair the freshness and 
force of the intellectual constitution, to chill and 
cloud the imagination, to break the elasticity 
of the inventive faculty; if not to blunt the 
keenness of the powers of analysis. Thus they 
indispose the mind to the wantonness of specu- 
lation, and impart to it rather the timidity, the 
acquiescence, the patience, which are proper to 
the submissive exposition of an authoritative 
rule of faith. Biblical learning, therefore, not 
only serves directly to dispel errors of opinion by 
throwing open the true sense of Scripture ; but 
it contains within itself what might be termed a 
physical preventive against heresy, which, if it 
be not always efficacious, is perceptibly ope- 
rative. Nothing then can be more desirable 
than that public opinion should continue, as it 
now does, to demand erudition from the teachers 
of religion. 

Nevertheless, when a large class of men is 
professionally devoted to the study of theology, 
there will not be wanting some whose mental 
conformation (not to mention motives which are 



OF HERESY. ^ 83 

foreign ta our subject) impels them to abandon 
the modest path of exposition, and to seek, 
within the precincts of religion, for the intel- 
lectual gratifications that accompany abstruse 
speculation, discovery, invention, exaggeration, 
and paradox. All these pleasures of a morbid 
or misdirected intellectual activity may be ob- 
tained in the regions of theology, not less than 
in those of mathematical and physical science, if 
once the restraints of a religious and heartfelt 
reverence for the authority of the word of God 
are discarded. The principal heresies that have 
disturbed the church may, no doubt, fairly be 
attributed to motives springing from the pride or 
perverse dispositions of the human heart; but 
often a mere intellectual enthusiasm has been 
the real source of false doctrine. 

Errors generated in this manner possess, com- 
monly, some aspect of beauty or of greatness, 
or of philosophical simplicity to recommend 
them ; for as they were framed amid a plea- 
surable excitement of the mind, so they will 
have power to convey a kindred delight to 
others. And such exorbitances of doctrine, 
when advanced by men of powerful or richly 
furnished minds, conceal their deformity and 
evil tendency beneath the attractions of intelli- 
gence. But the very same extravagances and 
showy paradoxes, when caught up by inferior ' 
spirits, presently lose their garb, not only of 
beauty, but of decency, and show themselves in 

g2 



84 THE ENTHUSIASM 

the loathsome nakedness of error. The mischief 
of heresy is often more active and conspicuous 
in second hands than in those of its authors; and 
the reason is that it is usually the child of intel- 
lectualists — an inoffensive order of men: but no 
sooner has it been brought forth and reared, 
than it joins itself, as by instinct, to minds of 
vulgar quality, and in that society soon learns 
the dialect of impiety and licentiousness. The 
heresiarch, though he may be more blameworthy, 
is often much less audacious, and less corrupted, 
than his followers ; for he, perhaps, is only an 
enthusiast ; they have become fanatics. 

In like manner as the passion for travel impels 
a man to perambulate the earth, and then makes 
him sigh to think that he has not other conti^ 
nents to explore, so the constitutional enthusiasm 
of speculation urges its victim to traverse the 
entire circuit of opinions ; and even then leaves 
him insatiate of novelty. It is not caprice, much 
less is it the excessive solicitude of an honest 
mind, always inquiring for truth ; but rather the 
impetus of a too highly -wrought intellectual 
activity, which carries the heretic onward and 
onward, from system to system, blazing as he 
goes, until there remains no form of flagrant 
error with which he has not scared the sober 
world. Then, though reason may have forgotten 
all consistency, pride has a better memory ; and 
as this passion forbids his return to the centre 



OF HERESY. 85 

truths he has so often denounced, and denounced 
from all points of his various course, nothing re- 
mains for him, when the season of exhaustion 
arrives, but to go off into the dark void of in- 
fidelity. 

The sad story has been often realized. In the 
conformation of the heretic by temperament there 
is more of intellectual mobility than of strength : 
a ready perception of analogies gives him both 
facility and felicity in collecting proofs, or rather 
illustrations, in support of whatever opinion he 
adopts. So copious are the materials of con- 
jectural argument which crowd upon him, and 
so nice is his tact of selection, and so quick his 
skill of arrangement, that ere dull sobriety has 
gathered up its weapons, he has reared a most 
imposing front of defence. Pleased and even 
surprised with his own work, he now confidently 
maintains a position which at first he scarcely 
thought to be seriously tenable. Having con- 
vinced himself of the certainty of the new truth, 
and implicated his vanity in its support, deeper 
motives stimulate the activity of the reasoning 
and inventive faculties ; and he presently piles 
demonstration upon demonstration, to a most 
amazing height, until it becomes, in his honest 
opinion, sheer infatuation to doubt. In this 
state of mind, of what value are the opinions of 
teachers and of elders ? Of what weight the 
belief of the catholic church in all ages ? They 
are nothing to be accounted of; there seems 



86 THE ENTHUSIASM 

even a glory and a heroism, as well as a duty, 
in spurning the fallible authority of man : 
modesty, caution, hesitation, are treasons against 
conscience and heaven ! 

The young heresiarch, we will suppose, to 
have spent the earliest season of life, while yet 
the ingenuousness of youth remained unimpaired, 
in the pursuits of literature or science, and to 
have been ignorant of Christianity otherwise than 
as a system of forms and offices. But the mo- 
ment of awakening arrives ; some appalling acci- 
dent or piercing sorrow sets the interests of time 
in abeyance, and opens upon the soul the vast 
objects of immortality. Or the eloquence of a 
preacher may effect the change. In these first 
moments of a new life, the great and common 
doctrines of religion, perceived in the freshness 
of novelty, afford scope enough to the ardour of 
the spirit ; and perhaps also, a new sentiment of 
submission quells, in some measure, that ardour: 
the craving of the mind does not yet need 
heresy ; truth has stimulus enough ; and even 
after truth has become somewhat vapid, the 
restraints of connexion and friendship have force 
to retain the convert three years, or five, in the 
bosom of humility. But the first accidental 
contact with doctrinal paradox kindles the con- 
stitutional passion, and rouses the slumbering 
faculties to the full activity of adult vigour; 
contention ensues ; malign sentiments, although 
perhaps foreign to the temper, are engendered, 



OF HERESY. 87 

and these impart gloom to mysticism, and add 
rancour to extravagance. And now, no dogma 
that is obnoxious, terrific, intolerant, schismatical, 
fails to be, in its turn, avowed by the delirious 
bigot, who burns with ambition to render himself 
the enemy, not of the world only, but of the 
church. 

But will even the last extravagance of false 
doctrine allay the diseased cravings of the brain ? 
Not unless that physical inertness which, towards 
the middle period of life, sometimes effects the 
cure of folly, or perhaps some motive of secular 
interest, supervenes. Otherwise a progression 
must take place, or a retrogression ; and when 
the heart is sick and faint from the exhaustion 
of over activity, when the whispers of conscience 
have long ceased to be heard, when the emotions 
of genuine piety have become painfully strange 
to the soul, nothing is so probable as an almost 
sudden plunge from the pinnacle of high belief, 
into the bottomless gulf of universal scepticism. 
A lamentable catastrophe of this kind, and which 
is nothing more than the natural issue of an 
intellectual enthusiasm, would, no doubt, much 
oftener take place than it does, if slender reasons 
of worldly prudence were not usually found to be 
of firmer texture than all the logic of theology. 

A chronic intellectual enthusiasm, when it 
becomes the source of heresy, most frequently 
betakes itself to those exaggerations of Christian 



88 THE ENTHUSIASM 

doctrine which pass under the general designation 
of Antinomianism ; — not the Antinomianism of 
workshops, which is a corruption of Christianity 
concocted by mercenary teachers expressly to 
give license to the sensualities of those by whom 
they are salaried ; but the Antinomianism of the 
closet, which is a translation into Christian phrase- 
ology of the ancient stoicism. The alleged rela- 
tionship consists, not so much in the similar 
abuse which is made in both systems of the 
doctrine of necessity ; but in the leading intention 
of both, which is to enclose the human mind in 
a perfect envelop of abstractions, such as may 
effectively defend it from the importunate sense 
of responsibility, or obligation, and such as shall 
render him who wears it a passive spectator of 
his own destinies. The doctrine of fate was 
seized upon by the stoic, and is taken up by 
the antinomian, because, better than any other 
principle, it serves the purposes of this peculiar 
species of illusory delectation. Yet the Chris- 
tian stoic has some signal advantages over his 
ancestor of the porch. For example : the egre- 
gious absurdities of the ancient philosophist met 
him on the very walk of life, and stood in the way 
of constant collision with the common sense of 
mankind : and thus the sage , in spite of his 
gravity and self-command, could hardly pass a 
day in public without being put to shame by 
some glaring proof of practical inconsistency ; for 
as often as he spoke or acted like other men, as 



OF HERESY. 89 

often as he made it evident that he did not really 
think himself a statue or a phantom, he gave 
the lie direct to the fooleries of his scholastic 
profession. 

But the modern stoic, while hy a sinister in- 
ference from his doctrine, he takes large leave of 
indulgence to the flesh, (an indulgence which he 
uses or not as his temperament may determine) 
and so borrows the practical part of epicureanism, 
transfers his egregious dogmas to the unseen 
world, where they come not all in contact with 
common sense. In the vast unknown of an eter- 
nity on both sides of time, he finds range enough, 
and immunity for even the most enormous para- 
doxes which ingenuity can devise, or sophistry 
defend. Besides, the argumentative resources of 
the modern, are incomparably more copious and 
various and tangible than those of the ancient 
stoic ; for the latter could only fall back, ever 
and again, upon the same abstractions ; but the 
former may take position on any part of a very 
wide frontier; for having so large and multifa- 
rious a volume as the Scriptures in his hand, and 
having multiplied the argumentative value of 
every sentence it contains, almost indefinitely, 
by adopting the rule of Origen and the Rabbis, 
that the whole of Scripture is mystical, and 
may bear every sense that can be found in it, he 
is at once secure from the possibility of being con- 
futed, and revels in an unbounded opulence of 
proof and illustration in support of his positions. 



90 THE ENTHUSIASM 

To the sober interpreter the Bible is one book ; 
but to the antinomian it is as a hundred 
volumes. 

With a field so wide, and means so inexhaus- 
tible, the stoic of Christianity lives in a paradise 
of speculation ; and no revolution to which human 
nature is liable can be less probable than that 
which must take place before he abandons his 
world of factitious happiness. The dreamer 
must feel that sin is a substantial ill, in which 
himself is fatally implicated ; not a mere abstrac- 
tion to be discoursed of : he must learn that the 
righteous God deals with mankind not fantas- 
tically, but on terms adapted to the intellectual 
and moral conformation of that human nature, of 
which He is the author ; and he must know that 
salvation is a deliverance, in which man is an 
agent, not less than a recipient. 

It belongs not at all to our subject to attempt 
a confutation of this, the most pestiferous of 
the many corruptions which Christianity has un- 
dergone : our part is merely to exhibit against 
the system the charge of delusion or enthusiasm ; 
and this charge needs no other proof than the 
plain statement that, whereas Christianity re- 
cognizes the actual mechanism of human nature, 
appeals to the moral sentiments, urges motives 
of every class, labours to enhance the sense of 
responsibility, and authenticates the voice of 
conscience ; antinomianism, with indurated arro- 
gance, spurns all such sentiments, and substitutes 



OF HERESY. 91 

nothing in their room but bare speculations ; and 
these speculations are all of a kind to cherish the 
idle and selfish deliriums of luxurious contem- 
plation. But to take a course like this is, 
whatever may be the subject in question, the 
part of an enthusiast. Whoever in any such 
manner cuts himself off from the common sym- 
pathies of our nature, and makes idiot sport 
of the energies of moral action, and has re- 
course either to a jargon of sophistries, or to 
trivial evasions when other men act upon the 
intuitions of good sense, and rebuts every idea 
that does not minister gratification either to 
fancy or to appetite, such a man must be called 
an enthusiast, even though he were at the same 
time — if that were possible, a saint. 

We have spoken of the enthusiasm of mys- 
ticism. But there is also an enthusiasm of 
simplification. The lowest intellectual tempe- 
rature, not less than the highest, admits extra- 
vagance, and sometimes even admits it more; 
for warmth and movement are less unnatural 
in the world of matter or of mind, than con- 
gelation : what so grotesque as the coruscations 
of frost ? If the reasoning faculty had not its 
imaginative impulse, the sciences would never 
have moved a step in advance of the mechanic 
arts ; much less would the high theorems of pure 
mathematics, or the abstruse principles of meta- 
physics, have been known to mankind. But if 



92 THE ENTHUSIASM 

this natural and useful impulse is irregular and 
excessive, it becomes the spring of errors. Yet 
the perfection of science and its general diffu- 
sion in modern times, operate so effectually 
to keep in check that propensity to absurd 
speculation of which the elements are always in 
existence, that if we are in search of specimens 
of this species of intellectual disease, we must 
expect to meet with them only without the pale 
of education, and among the self-taught philo- 
sophers of workshops, who sometimes amuse the 
hour of stolen leisure in digesting systems of the 
universe, other than the one which is demon- 
strated in our universities. 

Driven from the enclosures where the de- 
monstrable sciences hold empire, the enthusiasts 
of speculation turn off upon ground where there 
is more scope, more obscurity, more license, 
and less of the stern and instant magistracy of 
right reason. Some give themselves to politics, 
some to political economy, and some to theology ; 
and whatever they severally meet with that is 
in its nature, or that has become concrete, com- 
plex, or multifariously involved, they seize upon 
with a hungry avidity. The disease of the brain 
has settled upon the faculty of analysis; all 
things compound must therefore be severed, and 
not only be severed but left in disunion. It 
cannot but happen that in these zealous labours 
of dissolution some happy strokes must now and 
then fall upon errors which wiser men have 



OF HERESY. 93 

either not observed, or have spared : mankind 
owes therefore a petty debt of gratitude to such 
eager speculatists for having removed a few 
excrescences from ancient systems. But these 
trivial successes, which are hailed with a din of 
applause by the vulgar, who delight in wit- 
nessing any kind of destruction, and by the 
splenetic, who believe themselves to gain what- 
ever is torn from others, inspire the heroes of 
reform with unbounded hopes of effecting uni- 
versal revolutions ; and thev actuallv become 
inflated to so high a degree of presumption, 
that at a time when all the great questions 
which can occupy the human mind have been 
thoroughly discussed, and discussed with every 
advantage of liberty, of learning, and of ability, 
they are not ashamed to adopt a style of speak- 
ing as if they thought themselves morning stars 
on the verge of the dark ages, destined to usher 
in the tardy splendours of true philosophy upon 
a benighted world ! 

Or of true religion ; as if the Christian 
doctrine, in its most essential principles, had 
become extinct, even in the days of the apostles, 
and had remained under the bushel of super- 
stition, not only during the ages of religious 
despotism, but long after the chains of that 
despotism have been broken, and after the 
human mind, with all the vigour and intensity of 
renovated intelligence and renovated piety, has 
given its utmost force, and its utmost diligence 



94 THE ENTHUSIASM 

to the exposition of the canon of faith. Of 
what sort, it might be asked, were this canon, if 
its meaning on the most important points might, 
age after age, be utterly misunderstood by ninety- 
nine learned, honest, and unshackled men, and 
be perceived only by the one ? Yet this is the 
supposition of simplificators, who from the mere 
impulse of a faulty cerebral conformation, must 
needs disbelieve, because theology would other- 
wise afford them no intellectual exercise. 

It is a common notion incessantly repeated, 
and never sifted, that diversity of opinion, on even 
the cardinal points of Christian faith, is an inevi- 
table and a permanent evil, springing, and always 
to spring from the diversity of men's dispositions 
and intellectual faculties. Certainly no other 
expectation could be entertained if Christian 
theology were what moral philosophy was among 
the sophists of ancient Athens — a system of ab- 
stractions, owning subjection to no authority. 
But this is not the fact ; and though hitherto 
the ultimate authority has been much abused 
or spurned, the re-establishment of its power on 
fixed and well understood principles seems far 
from an improbable event. We say more, that an 
actual progression towards so happy a revolution 
is perceptible in our own times. We do not for 
a moment forget that a heartfelt acquiescence in 
the doctrines of Scripture must ever be the result 
of a divine influence, and is not to be effected by 



OF HERESY. 95 

the same means which produce uniformity of 
opinion on matters of science. But while we 
anticipate, on grounds of strong hope, a time 
of refreshing from above, which shall subdue 
the depraved repugnancies of the human mind, 
we may also anticipate, on grounds of common 
reasoning, a natural process of reform in theo- 
logy — considered as a science, which shall place 
the intrinsic absurdities of heresy in the broad 
light of day, henceforward to be contemned and 
avoided. 

The fields of error have been fully reaped 
and gleaned ; nor shall aught that is new spring 
up on that field, the whole botany of which 
is already known and classified. It is only of 
late that a fair, a competent, and an elabo- 
rate discussion of all the principal questions of 
theology has taken place; and the result of 
this discussion waits now to be manifested by 
some new movement of the human mind. Great 
and happy revolutions usually stand ready and 
latent for a time, until accident brings them 
forward. Such a change and renovation we 
believe to be at the door of the Christian Church. 
The ground of controversy has contracted itself 
daily during the last half century ; the gro- 
tesque and many-coloured forms of ancient heresy 
have disappeared, and the existing differences of 
opinion, some of which are indeed of vital conse- 
quence, all draw round a single controversy, the 
final decision of which it is hard to believe shall 



96 THE ENTHUSIASM 

long be deferred; for the minds of men are 
pressing towards it with an unusual intentness. 
This great question relates to the authority of 
Holy Scripture ; and the professedly Christian 
world is divided upon it into three parties, com- 
prehending all- smaller varieties of opinion. 

The first of these parties, constituted of the 
Romish Church and its disguised favourers, affirms 
the subordination of the authority of Scripture to 
that of the priest. This is a doctrine of slavery 
and of ignorance, which the mere progress of 
knowledge and of civil liberty must overthrow, 
if it be not first exploded by other means. The 
second party comprises the sceptical sects of the 
Protestant world, which agree in affirming the 
subordination of Scripture to the dogmas of 
natural theology ; in other words, to every man's 
notion of what religion ought to be. These sects, 
having no barrier between themselves and pure 
deism, are continually dwindling by desertions 
to infidelity ; nor will be able to hold their 
slippery footing on the edge of Christianity a 
day after a general revival of serious piety has 
taken place. 

The third party, comprehending the great 
majority of the Protestant body, bows reverently, 
and implicitly, and with intelligent conviction, 
to the absolute authority of the word of God, 
and knows of nothing in theology that is not 
affirmed or fairly implied therein. The dif- 
ferences existing within this party, how much 






OF HERESY. 97 

soever they may be exaggerated by bigots, will 
vanish as the mists of the morning under the 
brightness of the sun, whenever a refreshment of 
pious feeling descends upon the Church. They 
consist, in part, of mere misunderstandings of 
abstract phrases, unknown to the language of 
Scripture ; in part they hinge upon political 
constitutions, of which so much as is substan- 
tially evil is by no means of desperate inveteracy : 
in part these differences are nothing better than 
the lumber of antiquity, the worthless relics of 
forgotten janglings, handed down from father to 
son, but now, by so many transmissions, worn 
away to an extreme slenclerness, and quite ready 
to crumble into the dust of everlasting forgetful- 
ness. Men shall not always so remain children 
in understanding as that the lesser shall be pre- 
ferred to the greater ; nor shall it always be that 
the substantial sin of schism shall be incurred 
and vindicated on the ground of obscure his- 
torical questions, fit only to amuse the idle hours 
of the antiquary. This trifling with things 
sacred must come to its end, and the great law 
of love must triumph, and the Christian Church 
henceforward have " one Lord, one faith, one 
baptism." 



SECTION V. 

THE ENTHUSIASM OF PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 

Disappointment is perhaps the most frequent 
of all the occasional causes of insanity ; but the 
sudden kindling of hope sometimes produces the 
same lamentable effect. Yet before this emotion, 
congenial as it is to the human mind, can exert 
so fatal an influence, the expected good must be 
of immeasurable magnitude, and must appear in 
the light of the strongest probability; nor must 
even the vagueness of a distant futurity inter- 
vene, otherwise the swellings of desire and joy 
would be quelled, and reason might maintain its 
seat. On this principle, perhaps it is, that the 
vast and highly exciting hope of immortal life 
very rarely, even in susceptible minds, generates 
that kind of emotion which brings with it the 
hazard of mental derangement. Religious mad- 
ness, when it occurs, is most often the madness 
of despondency. But if the glories of heaven 
might by any means, and in contravention of 
the established order of things, be brought out 
from the dimness and concealment of the unseen 
world, and be placed ostensibly on this side of 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 99 

the darkness and coldness of death, and be linked 
with objects familiarly known, they might then 
press so forcibly upon the passion of hope, and so 
inflame excitable imaginations, that real insanity, 
or an approach towards it, would probably, in 
some instances, be the consequence. 

A provision against mischiefs of this kind is 
evidently contained in the extreme reserve of 
the Scriptures on all subjects connected with 
the unseen w r orld. This reserve is so singular, 
and so extraordinary, seeing that the Jewish 
poets, prophets and preachers were Asiatics, 
that it affords no trivial proof of the divine ori- 
gination of the books : an intelligent advocate of 
the Bible will choose to rest an argument rather 
upon the paucity of its discoveries, than upon 
their plenitude. 

But now a confident and dogmatical inter- 
pretation of those prophecies that are supposed 
to be on the eve of fulfilment, has manifestly a 
tendency thus to bring forth the wonders of the 
unseen world, and to connect them in sensible 
contact with the familiar objects and events of 
the present state. And such interpretations may 
be held with so full and overwhelming a persua- 
sion of their truth, that heaven and its splen- 
dours may seem to stand at the door of our very 
homes : to-morrow, perhaps, the hastening crisis 
of the nations shall lift the veil which so long 
has hidden the brightness of the eternal throne 
from mortal eyes: each turn of public affairs; a 

h2 



100 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

war, a truce, a conspiracy, a royal marriage, 
may be the immediate precursor of that new era, 
wherein it shall no longer be true, as heretofore, 
that, " the things eternal are unseen." 

When an opinion, or we should rather say a 
persuasion, of this imposing kind is entertained 
by a mind of more mobility than strength, and 
when it has acquired form, and consistency, and 
definiteness, by being long and incessantly the 
object of contemplation, it may easily gain ex- 
clusive possession of the mind ; and a state of 
exclusive occupation of the thoughts by a single 
subject, if it be not real madness, differs little 
from it ; for a man can hardly be called sane who 
is mastered by one set of ideas, and has lost the 
will or the power to break up the continuity of 
his musings. 

Whether or not this explanation be just, it is 
matter of fact that no species of enthusiasm has 
carried its victims nearer to the brink of insanity 
than that which originates in the interpretation 
of unfulfilled prophecy. It need not be asked 
whether there is not some capital error on the 
side of many who have given themselves to this 
study ; for the indications of egregious delusion 
have been of a kind not at all ambiguous. There 
must be present some lurking mischief when 
the study of any part of Holy Scripture issues 
in extravagance of conduct, and in an offen- 
sive turgidness of language, and produces — not 
quietness and peace, but a wild and quaking 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 101 

looking-for of impending wonders. There must 
be a fault of principle when the demeanour of 
Christians is such that those who occupy the 
place of the unlearned are excused when they 

sa y> " y e are mad." 

That some peculiar danger haunts this region 
of biblical inquiry is established by a double 
proof ; for not only have men of exorbitant ima- 
ginations and feeble judgment rushed towards 
it instinctively, and with the eagerness of infatua- 
tion ; but sometimes the soundest understandings 
have lost, in these inquiries, their wonted dis- 
cretion. At several periods of church history, 
and again in our own times, multitudes have 
drunk to intoxication of the phial of prophetic 
interpretation ; and, amid imagined peals of the 
mystic thunder, have become deaf to the voice 
both of common sense and of duty. The piety 
of such persons — if piety it may be called, has 
made them hunger and thirst, not for "the 
bread and water of life," but for the news of 
the political world. In such instances it may 
be confidently affirmed, previously to a hearing 
of the argument, that, even if the interpretation 
were true, it has become entangled with some 
knotted thread of egregious error. 

The proper remedy for evils of this kind is 
not to be found in the timid or overbearing pro- 
hibitions of those who endeavour to prevent the 
mischief by interdicting inquiry ; and who would 
make it a sin or a folly for a christian to ask 



102 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

the meaning of certain portions of Scripture. 
Cautions and restrictions of this nature are in- 
compatible with the principles of Protestantism, 
as well as unnecessary, arrogant and unavailing. 
If indeed man possessed any means of intrusion 
upon the mysteries of the upper world, or upon 
the secrets of futurity, there might be room to 
reprehend the audacity of those who should 
attempt to know by force or by importunity of 
research what has not been revealed. But when 
the unseen and the future are, by the sponta- 
neous grace of heaven, in part set open, when 
a message which might have been withheld, has 
been sent to earth, encircled with a benediction 
like this — " Blessed are they that hear, and keep 
these words :" then it may most safely be con- 
cluded that whatever is not marked with the seal 
of prohibition, is open to scrutiny. In truth 
there is something incongruous in the notion 
of a revelation enveloped in menace and re- 
striction. But be this as it may, it is certain 
that whoever would shut up the Scriptures, in 
whole or in part, from his fellow disciples, or 
who affirms it to be unsafe or unwise to study 
such and such passages, is bound to show 
reasons of the most convincing kind for the 
exclusion. " What God has joined, let not man 
put asunder ;" but he has connected his bless- 
ing, comprehensively, with the study of his word. 
It may be left to the Romish Church to em- 
ploy that faulty argument of captious arrogance, 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 103 

which prohibits the use of whatever may be 
abused. Unless then it can be shown that a 
divine interdiction encloses the prophetic portions 
of Scripture, it must be deemed an ill-judged 
and irreligious, though perhaps well-intended 
usurpation, in any one who assumes to plant his 
little rod of obstruction across the highway of 
Revelation. 

Morever, prohibitions of this kind are futile, 
because impossible to be observed. Every one 
admits that the study of those prophecies which 
have already received their accomplishment is 
a matter of high importance and positive duty ; 
"we have a sure word of prophecy, to which 
we do well to take heed." But how soon, in 
attempting to discharge this duty, are we en- 
tangled in a snare, if indeed the study of unful- 
filled prophecy be in itself improper ; for many 
of the prophecies, and those especially which 
are the most definite, and the most intelligible, 
stretch themselves across the wide gulf of time, 
and rest upon points intervening between the 
days of the Seer, and the hour when the 
mystery of providence shall be finished : and 
these comprehensive predictions, instead of track- 
ing their way by equal and measured intervals 
through the course of ages, traverse vast spaces 
unmarked ; and with a sudden bound, parting 
from an age now long gone by, attain at 
once the last period of the human economy. 
These abrupt transitions create obscurities which 



104 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

must either shut up the whole prophecy from in 
quiry, or necessitate a scrutiny of the whole ; for 
at a first perusal, and without the guidance of 
learned investigation, who shall venture to place 
his finger on the syllable which forms the boun- 
dary between the past and the future, and which 
constitutes the limit between duty and presump- 
tion ? A prediction which may seem to belong 
to futurity, will, perhaps, on better information, 
be found to regard the past ; or the reverse. 
These extensive prophecies, and such are those 
of Daniel and of John, must then either be 
shunned altogether from the fear of trespassing 
on forbidden ground, or they must be studied 
entire, in dependence upon other means than 
voluntary ignorance for avoiding presumption 
and enthusiasm. Whoever would discharge for 
others the difficult office of marking, throughout 
the Scriptures, the boundaries of lawful investi- 
gation, must himself first have committed the 
supposed trespass upon the regions of unful- 
filled prophecy. We conclude, therefore, that a 
separation which no one can effect, is not really 
needed.* 



* It is surely a mistaken caution which says — of the Apocalypse 
for example, it is a dark portion of Scripture, and better let alone 
than explored. Very unhappy consequences are involved in such 
an interdiction. This magnificent book is introduced to the regards 
of the Church as a discovery of things that must shortly come to pass. 
Now we must either believe that the Iv rdx^i) was intended to indicate 
a period of eighteen hundred years (perhaps a much longer term) 
or admit that the initial, and probably the larger portions of the 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 105 

The ancient Church received no cautions 
against a too eager scrutiny of the great pro- 
phecy left to excite its hope : on the contrary, 
the pious were " divinely moved " to search what 
might be the purport and season of the reve- 
lation made by the " Spirit of Christ" to the 
prophets ; and though these predictions did in 
fact give occasion to the delusions of " many 

prophecy have already received their seal of verification from history, 
and come therefore fairly within the scope of even the most scrupulous 
rule of inquiry, and in fact should now form part of the standing 
evidence of the truth of Christianity. To think less than this seems 
to imply a very dangerous inference. If a part of this prophecy be 
actually accomplished ; and if yet it be impracticable to assign the 
predictions to the events, will not one at least of the great purposes 
for which, as we are taught, prophecy was given, have been rather 
defeated than served ? There is not perhaps a fulfilled prophecy on 
the page of inspiration which learned ingenuity might not plausibly 
allege to have been hitherto altogether misunderstood, and errone- 
ously supposed to relate to such or such events. It is a matter of 
course that, when a multitude of minds, variously influenced, and 
too often influenced by a wish to establish a theory upon which 
literary ambition may build its pretensions, are employed in the 
exposition of mystic predictions, every scheme to which any appear- 
ance of probability can be given, should actually find an advocate. 
And then those who wish to discourage inquiry may vauntingly 
say — See how various and how opposite are the opinions of inter- 
preters! Meanwhile, it may be perfectly true, that among these 
various interpretations there may be one which, though not altogether 
unexceptionable, or wholly free from difficulties, will firmly secure 
the approval of every unprejudiced and intelligent inquirer. 

Some very sober Christians, while endeavouring by all means 
to secure the young against the mania of prophetical interpretation, 
seem little aware of how far they are treading upon the very path 
which infidelity frequents. To advise a diligent study of prophecy 
(to those who have the leisure and learning requisite) would it not 
be far safer, than to shrug the shoulders in sage alarm, and to say — 
Prophecy ! oh, let it alone ! 



106 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

deceivers," and though they were greatly mis- 
understood, even by the most pious and the best 
informed of the Jewish people ; yet did not the 
foreknowledge of these mischiefs and errors call 
for any such restrictions upon the spirit of in- 
quiry as those wherewith some persons are now 
fain to hedge about the Scriptures. 

To the Christian Church the second coming 
of Christ stands where his first coming stood to 
the Jewish, namely, in the very centre of the field 
of prophetic light; and a participation in the 
glories " then to be revealed" is even limited to 
those who in every age are devoutly "looking 
for him." It is true that this doctrine of the 
second coming of Christ has, like that of his 
first, wrought strongly upon enthusiastic minds, 
and been the occasion of some pernicious delu- 
sions ; yet, for the correction of these incidental 
evils, we must look to other means than to any 
existing cautions given to the Church in the 
Scriptures against a too earnest longing for the 
promised advent of her King. To snatch this 
great promise from Scripture in hasty fear, and 
then to close the book lest we should see more 
than it is intended we should know, is not our 
part. On the contrary, it is chiefly from a 
diligent and comprehensive study of the terms 
of the great unfulfilled prophecy of Scripture, 
that a preservative against delusion is to be 
gathered. To check assiduous researches by 
cautions which the humble may respect, but 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 107 

which the presumptuous will certainly contemn, 
is to abandon the leading truth of Revelation to 
the uncorrected wantonness of fanaticism. 

It is often not so much the intrinsic qualities 
of an opinion, as the unwarrantable confidence 
with which it is held, that generates enthusiasm. 
Persuade the dogmatist to be modest, as every 
Christian undoubtedly ought who thinks himself 
compelled to dissent from the common belief 
of the Church ; persuade him to give respectful 
attention to the argument of an opponent ; in 
a word, to surrender the topmost point of his 
assurance, and presently the high temperature 
of his feelings will come down near to the level 
\/ of sobriety. To doubt after hearing of sufficient 
evidence, and to dogmatize where proof is con- 
fessedly imperfect, are alike the indications of 
infirmity of judgment, if not of perversity of 
temper ; and these great faults, which never 
predominate in the character apart from the 
indulgence of unholy passions, seem often to be 
judicially visited with a hopeless imbecility of the 
reasoning faculties. Thus, while the sceptic be- 
comes, in course of time, incapable of retaining 
his hold even of the most certain truths, the 
dogmatist, on the other hand, loses all power of 
suspending for a moment his decisions ; and, as a 
feather and a ball of lead descend with the same 
velocity when dropped in a vacuum, so do all 
propositions, whether loaded with a weight of 



108 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

evidence or not, instantly reach in his under- 
standing the firm ground of absolute assurance. 

Instead therefore of enhancing the arrogance 
of the half-insane interpreter of prophecy by 
inviting him to display the blazing front of his 
argument, it may be better, if it can be done, 
to demonstrate that even though it should appear 
that his opinion carries a large balance of proba- 
bility, there is still a special and very peculiar 
impropriety in the tone of dogmatism which, on 
this particular subject, he assumes ; so that the 
error of the general Church, if it be an error, 
is actually less than the fault of him who, in this 
temper, may boast that he has truth on his side. 
Such a case of special impropriety may, in this 
instance, very clearly be made out. 

The language of prophecy is either common or 
mystical. Predictions delivered in the style of 
common discourse, and free from symbols, as they 
are little liable to diversities of explication, do 
not often tempt the ingenuity of visionaries : they 
may, therefore, be excluded from consideration in 
the present instance. Mystic prophecy, or future 
history written in symbols, under guidance of the 
divine foreknowledge, in being committed to the 
custody and perusal of mankind, must be pre- 
sumed to conform itself to the laws of that par- 
ticular species of composition to which it bears 
the nearest analogy. For if the Divine Being 
condescends at all to hold intercourse with men, 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 109 

it cannot be doubted that He will do so, not only 
in a language known to them, but in a manner 
perfectly accordant to the rules and proprieties 
of the medium He deigns to employ. Now the 
prophecies in question not merely belong to the 
general class of symbolic writing, but there is to 
be discerned in them, very plainly, the specific 
style of the enigma, which, in early ages, was a 
usual mode of embodying the most important 
and serious truths. In the enigma, the principal 
subject is, by some ingenuity of definition, and 
by some ambiguity of description, at once held 
forth and concealed. The law by which it is 
constructed demands, that while there is given, 
under a guise, some special mark which shall 
prevent the possibility of doubt when once the 
substance signified is seen, that substance shall be 
so artfully depicted that the description, though 
it be a true representation, may admit of more 
than one explication. There can be no genuine 
and fair enigma in which these conditions are not 
complied with. For if no special mark be given, 
the true solution must want the means of vindi- 
cating its exclusive propriety, when the substance 
signified is declared; a vague riddle is none. 
Or if the special mark be not disguised, if no 
varnishing opacity be spread over it, the sub- 
stance is manifested at once, and the enigma 
nullified. Again, if the general description is 
not so contrived as to admit of several plausible 
hypotheses, then also the whole intention of the 



• 



110 



THE ENTHUSIASM OF 



device is destroyed, and the special mark rendered 
useless ; for what need can there be of an infallible 
indicator which is to come in as arbiter among a 
number of competing solutions, if, in fact, no 
room be left for diversity of interpretation ? 

Whenever, therefore, among mystic enuncia- 
tions we can detect the existence of some couched 
and specific note of identification, we may most 
certainly conclude that it is placed there to serve 
a future purpose of discrimination among several 
admissible modes of solution ; or in other words, 
that the enigma is designedly so framed as to 
tempt and to allow a diversity of hypothetical 
explanations. An enigmatical or symbolical 
enunciation conformed to these essential rules, 
serves the threefold purpose of presenting a blind 
to the incurious, a trap to the dogmatical, and 
an exercise of modesty, of patience, and of saga- 
city to the wise. And this seems to be the result 
intended, and actually accomplished by the sym- 
bolical prophecies of Scripture. 

When the subject of enigma already stands 
within the range of our knowledge, and requires 
only to be singled out, the process of solution is 
simple. The several suppositions that seem to 
comport with the ambiguous description are to 
be brought together ; and then the special mark 
must be applied to each in turn, until such a 
precise and convincing correspondence is dis- 
covered as at once strips the false solutions of 
all their pretensions : if the enigma be fairly 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION, 111 

constructed, this method of induction will never 
fail of success. Thus, with the page of history 
before us, those prophecies of Daniel, for exam- 
ple, which relate to the invasion of Greece by 
the Persians, to the subsequent overthrow of 
the Persian monarchy by the Macedonians, to 
the division of the conquests of Alexander, to 
the spread of the Roman arms, and to the sub- 
division of the Roman Empire, are interpreted 
without hazard of error, and with a completeness 
and a speciality of coincidence, that carries a 
conviction of the divine dictation of those pro- 
phecies to every honest mind. 

A course somewhat less gratifying to the 
eagerness of enthusiastic spirits must be pur- 
sued, if the subject of the sacred enigma does 
not actually stand within our view ; if it rests 
in a foreign region, as for example, in the 
region of futurity. It will by no means follow 
that a symbolic prediction, which remains un- 
fulfilled, ought not to be made the subject of 
investigation; for as the description doubtless 
contains, by condensation, the substance of the 
unknown reality, and perhaps also much of its 
character, it may, even when mingled with erro- 
neous interpretations, serve important purposes 
in the excitement of pious hope. The delivery 
of these enigmas into the hands of the Church, 
and their intricate intermixture with fulfilled 
prophecies, and their being every where em- 
bossed with attractive lessons of piety and virtue, 



112 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

not to mention the explicit invitation to read 
and study them, may confidently be deemed to 
convey a full license of examination. Yet in 
these instances the well-known laws of the pecu- 
liar style in which the predictions are enveloped, 
suggest restrictions and cautions which no hum- 
ble and pious expositor can overlook. The fault 
of the dogmatist in prophecy is then manifest. 
Is a mystic prediction averred to be unfulfilled ? 
then we know, that, by the essential law of 
its composition, it is designedly, we might say, 
artfully constructed, so as to admit of several, 
and perhaps of many plausible interpretations, 
having nearly equal claims of probability ; and 
we know moreover, that the special mark 
couched amid the symbols, and which in the 
issue is to arbitrate among the various solu- 
tions, is drawn from some minute peculiarity 
in the surface and complexion of the future sub- 
stance, and therefore cannot be available for the 
purpose of discrimination, until that substance 
in the shape and colour of reality starts forth 
into day. 

The expositor, therefore, who presumptuously 
espouses any one of the several interpretations of 
which an enigmatical prophecy is susceptible, and 
who fondly claims for it a positive and exclusive 
preference, sins most flagrantly, and most out- 
rageously, against the unalterable laws of the 
language of which he professes himself a master. 
If dogmatism on matters not fully revealed be in 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 113 

all cases blameworthy, it is eminently and espe- 
cially condemnable in the expositor of enigmatic 
prophecy ; and that, not merely because the 
events so predicted rest under the awful veil of 
futurity, and exist only in the prescience of the 
Deity; but because the chosen style of the com- 
munication lays a distinct claim to modesty, and 
demands suspension of judgment. The use of 
symbols speaks a design of concealment ; and 
do we suppose that what God has hidden, the 
sagacity of man shall discover ? In issuing the 
prediction, He does indeed invite the humble 
inquiries of the Church ; and in using symbols 
which have a conventional meaning He gives a 
clew to learned research ; and yet by the combi- 
nation of these symbols in the enigmatic form, 
an articulate warning is issued against all dog- 
matical confidence of interpretation. 

The adoption of an exclusive theory of expo- 
sition will not fail to be followed by an attempt 
to attach the special marks of prophecy to every 
passing event ; and it is this attempt which sets 
enthusiasm in a flame ; for it belongs, in common, 
to all the religious vices that, though mild and 
harmless while roaming at large among remote 
or invisible objects, they assume a noxious ac- 
tivity the moment that they fix their grasp upon 
things near and tangible. There is scarcely any 
degree of sobriety of temper which can secure the 
mind against fanatical restlessness when once 
the habit has been formed of collating, daily, the 

i 






114 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

newspaper and the prophets ; and the man who, 
with a feeble judgment and an excitable imagi- 
nation, is constantly catching at political intelli- 
gence — apocalypse in hand, walks on the verge 
of insanity, or worse, of infidelity. In this 
feverish state of the feelings, mundane interests, 
under the guise of faith and hope, occupy the 
soul to the exclusion of "things unseen and 
eternal :" meanwhile the heart-affecting matters 
of piety and virtue become vapid to the taste, 
and gradually fall into forge tfulness. 

The fault of the dogmatical expositor of pro- 
phecy is especially manifested when he assumes 
to determine the chronology of unfulfilled pre- 
dictions. In the instance of prophetic dates the 
different lines of conduct suggested by the dif- 
ferent styles of the communication, are readily 
perceived, and cheerfully observed by calm and 
modest interpreters. We may take, for illustra- 
tion, the predicted duration of the captivity of 
Judah, which was made known by Jeremiah 
(xxix. 10) in the intelligible terms of common 
and popular computation ; nor could the suppo- 
sition of a symbolic sense of the words be admitted 
by any sober expositor. On the authority of 
this unequivocal prediction, Daniel, as the time 
spoken of drew near, made confession and suppli- 
cation in the full assurance of warranted faith. 
In this confidence there was no presumption, for 
his persuasion rested, not on the assumed validity 
of this or of that ingenious interpretation of 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 115 

symbols, but upon an explicit declaration which 
needed only to be read ; not expounded. 

But when the beloved seer received from his 
celestial informant the date of seventy weeks, 
which should fix the period of the Messiah's 
advent and propitiatory sufferings, the employ- 
ment of symbolic terms, of itself announced the 
double intention of, at once, revealing the time, 
and of concealing it. For, as the terms, though 
mythic, bore a known import, they could not be 
thought to be absolutely shut up from research ; 
yet, as by the mode of their combination, they 
became susceptible of a considerable diversity of 
interpretation, the wise and good might, after all 
their diligence, differ in opinion as to the precise 
moment of accomplishment. Thus was devout 
inquiry at once invited and restrained ; invited, 
because the language of prediction was not un- 
known ; and restrained, because it asked for 
interpretation, and admitted a diversity of opi- 
nion. Those pious persons, therefore, who, at 
the time of the Messiah's birth, were " looking 
for the consolation of Israel," could not, unless 
favoured with personal revelations, affirm " this 
is the very year of the expected deliverance ;" 
for the symbolic chronology might, with an 
appearance of reason, bear a somewhat different 
sense. Yet might such persons, though not per- 
fectly agreed in opinion, lawfully and safely join in 
an exulting hope, that the time spoken of was not 
far distant, when the Son of David should appear. 

i2 



116 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

The same rule is applicable to the position of 
the church at the present moment. No one, it 
may be affirmed, can have given due attention to 
the questions which have been of late so much 
agitated, without feeling compelled to acknow- 
ledge that a high degree of probability supports 
the belief of an approaching extraordinary de- 
velopment of the mystery of providence towards 
Christendom, and perhaps, towards the whole 
family of man. That this probability is strong, 
might be argued from the fact that it has wrought 
a general concurrence of belief among those 
whose modes of thinking on most subjects are 
extremely dissimilar. Christians, amid many 
contrarieties of opinion, are, with a tacit or an 
explicit expectation, looking for movement and 
progression, to be effected, either by a quickened 
energy of existing means, or by the sudden ope- 
ration of new causes. This probable opinion, if 
held in the spirit of christian modesty, affords, 
under the sanction of the coolest reason, a new 
and strong excitement to religious hope. He who 
entertains it may exultingly, yet calmly exclaim, 
" The night is far spent, the day is at hand ;" and 
the kindling expectation will rouse him to greater 
diligence in every good work, to greater watch- 
fulness against every defilement of heart, and 
frivolity of spirit, and inconsistency of conduct : 
he will strive with holy wakefulness, to live as 
the disciple should who is "waiting for his Lord." 
Thus far he can justify the new vivacity of his 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 117 

hopes upon the ground of the permanent motives 
of religion ; for he feels nothing more than a 
Christian may well always feel ; and the opinion 
he entertains relative to the near accomplishment 
of ultimate prophecy, serves only as an incite- 
ment to a state of mind in which he would fain 
be found, if called suddenly from the present 
scene. While giving free admission to sentiments 
of this sort, he knows that though he should be 
mistaken in his theoretical premises, he shall 
certainly be right in his practical inference. 

But if the discreet Christian is tempted or 
solicited to admit an incongruous jumble of poli- 
tical speculations and Christian hopes ; if he is 
called upon to detach in any degree his attention 
from immediate and unquestionable duties, and 
to fix his meditations on objects that have no 
connexion with his personal responsibility ; then 
he will check such an intrusion of turbulence and 
distraction, the tendency of which he feels to be 
pernicious, by recollecting that his opinion, how 
probable soever it may seem, is, at the best, 
nothing more than one hypothesis among the 
many, which offer themselves in explanation of 
an enigmatical prediction. To-day this hypo- 
thesis pleases him by its plausibility ; to-morrow 
he may reject it on better information. 

Nothing then can be much more precise than 
the line which forms the boundary between a 
legitimate and an enthusiastic feeling on the 
subject of prophecy. Is a prediction couched 



118 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

in symbol? is it entangled among perplexing 
anachronisms ? is it studded with points of 
special reference ? We then recognize the hand 
of heaven in the art of its construction ; and 
we know that it is so moulded as to admit 
and invite the manifold diversities* of ingenious 
explication ; and that therefore, even the true 
explication must, until the day of solution, 
stand undistinguished in a crowd of plausible 
errors. But for a man to proclaim himself 
the champion of a particular hypothesis, and 
to employ it as he might an explicit predic- 
tion, is to affront the Spirit of prophecy by 
contemning the chosen style of His announce- 
ments. And what shall be said of the auda- 
city of him, who, with no other commission in 
his hand than such as any man may please to 
frame for himself, usurps the awful style of 
the seer, pronounces the doom of nations, hurls 
thunders at thrones, and worse than this, puts 
the credit of Christianity at pawn in the hand 
of infidelity, to be lost beyond recovery, if not 
redeemed on a day specified by the fanatic for 
the verification of his word ! 

The agitation which has recently taken place 
on the subject of prophecy, may, perhaps, ere 
long, subside, and the church may again ac- 
quiesce in its old sobrieties of opinion. And 
yet a different and a better result of the existing 
controversy seems not altogether improbable; 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 119 

for when enthusiasm has raved itself into ex- 
haustion, and has received from time the refu- 
tation of its precocious hopes; and when, on 
the other side, prosing mediocrity has uttered 
all its saws, and has fallen back into its own 
slumber of contented ignorance, then the spirit 
of research and of legitimate curiosity, which no 
doubt has been diffused among not a few intel- 
ligent students of Scripture, may bring on a 
calm, a learned, and a productive discussion of 
the many great questions that belong to the 
undeveloped destiny of man. And it may be 
believed that the issue of such discussions will 
take its place among the means that shall con- 
cur to usher in a brighter age of Christianity. 

Not indeed as if any fundamental principle 
of religion remained to be discovered; for the 
spiritual church has, in every age, possessed the 
substance of truth, under the promised teaching 
of the Spirit of truth. But, obviously, there are 
many subjects, more or less clearly revealed in 
the Scriptures, upon which egregious errors may 
be entertained, consistently with genuine, and 
even exalted piety : they do indeed belong to 
the entire faith of a Christian ; but they form no 
part of its basis ; they may be detached or dis- 
figured without great peril to the stability of the 
structure. Almost all opinions relating to the 
unseen world, and to the future providence of 
God on earth, are of this extrinsic or subordinate 
character ; and, as a matter of fact, pious and 



120 THE ENTHUSIASM OF 

cautious men have, on subjects of this kind, held 
notions so incompatibly dissimilar, that the one 
or the other must have been utterly erroneous. 
But the detection of error always opens a vista 
of hope to the diligence of inquiry ; and with 
the mistakes of our predecessors before us for 
our warning, and with a highly improved state 
of biblical learning for our aid, it may fairly 
be anticipated that a devout and industrious re- 
consideration of the evidence of Scripture will 
achieve some important improvements in the 
opinions of the church on these difficult and 
obscure subjects. 

And yet, though an expectation of this kind 
may seem reasonable, there is, on the other hand, 
some ground to imagine that the accomplish- 
ment of the inscrutable designs of the Divine 
Providence, may require that the pious should 
henceforth, as heretofore, continue to entertain 
not only imperfect but very mistaken notions 
of the unseen and the future worlds. Well- 
founded hopes and erroneous interpretations 
have been linked together in the history of the 
church in all ages, even from that hour of falla- 
cious exultation when the mother of a murderer 
exclaimed — " I have gotten the man from the 
Lord," the man who should " break the ser- 
pent's head." Neither the discharge of present 
duties, nor the exercise of right affections, nor 
a substantial preparation for taking a part in 
the glory that is to be revealed, is perhaps at 



PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 121 

all necessarily connected with just anticipations 
of the unknown futurity. Thus when the in- 
fant wakes into the light of this world, every 
organ presently assumes its destined function : 
the heaving bosom confesses the fitness of the 
material it inhales to support the new style of 
existence; and the senses admit the first im- 
pressions of the external world with a sort of 
anticipated familiarity ; and though utterly un- 
taught in the scenes upon which it has so sud- 
denly entered, and inexperienced in the orders 
of the place where it must ere long act its part, 
yet it is truly " meet to be a partaker of the 
inheritance " of life. And thus, too, a real meet- 
ness for his birth into the future life may belong 
to the Christian, though he be utterly ignorant 
of its circumstances and conditions. But the 
functions of that new life have been long in a 
hidden play of preparation for full activity. He 
has waited in the coil of mortality only for the 
moment when he should inspire the ether of the 
upper world, and behold the light of eternal day, 
and hear the voices of new companions, and taste 
of the immortal fruit, and drink of the river of 
life ; and then, after perhaps a short season of 
nursing in the arms of the elder members of the 
family above, he will take his place in the service 
and orders of the heavenly house, nor ever have 
room to regret the ignorances of his mortal state. 
The study of those parts of Scripture which 
relate to futurity, should therefore be undertaken 






122 PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION. 

with zeal, inspired by a reasonable hope of suc- 
cessful research ; and at the same time with the 
modesty and resignation which must spring from 
a not unreasonable supposition, that all such 
researches may be fruitless. So long as this 
modesty is preserved, there will be no danger of 
enthusiastic excitements, whatever may be the 
opinions which we are led to entertain. 

It must be evident to every calm mind, that 
the discussion of questions confessedly so obscure, 
and upon which the evidence of Scripture is 
limited, and of uncertain explication, is abso- 
lutely improper to the pulpit. The several points 
of the Catholic faith afford themes enough for 
public instruction. But matters of learned debate 
are extraneous to that faith ; they are no ingre- 
dients in the bread of life, which is the only article 
committed to the hands of the teacher for distri- 
bution among the multitude. What are the 
private and hypothetical opinions of a public 
functionary to those whom he is to teach the 
principles of the common Christianity ? And if 
these doubtful opinions implicate inquiries which 
the unlearned can never prosecute, a species of 
imposition is implied in the attempt to urge 
them upon simple hearers. It is truly a sorry 
triumph that he obtains who wins by declamation 
and violence the voices of a crowd in favour of opi- 
nions which men of learning and modesty neither 
defend nor impugn but with diffidence. The press 
is the proper organ of abstruse controversy. 



SECTION VI. 

ENTHUSIASTIC PERVERSIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE. 

No species of enthusiasm, perhaps, is more 
extensively prevalent, and certainly none clings 
more tenaciously to the mind that has once 
entertained it, and none produces more practical 
mischief, than that which is founded on an abuse 
of the doctrine of a particular Providence. It is 
by the fortuities of life that the religious enthu- 
siast is deluded. Chance, under a guise stolen 
from piety, is his divinity. He believes, and he 
believes justly, that every seeming fortuity is 
under the absolute control of the Divine hand ; 
but in virtue of the peculiar interest he supposes 
himself to have on high, he is tempted to think 
that these contingencies are very much at his 
command. This belief naturally inclines him to 
pay more regard to the unusual, than to the 
common course of events. In contemplating 
God as the disposer of chances, he becomes 
forgetful of Him who is the governor of the 
world by known and permanent laws. All the 
honour which he does to one of the divine 



124 ABUSES OF THE 

attributes, is in fact stolen from the reverence 
due to another ; but he should remember that 
" the Lord abhorreth robbery for offering," 

A propensity to look more to chance than to 
probability is known invariably to debilitate the 
reasoning faculty, and to vitiate the moral senti- 
ments ; and these constant effects are more often 
aggravated than mitigated by the accession of 
religious sentiments. The illusions of hope then 
assume a tone of authority which effectually 
silences the whispers of common sense ; and the 
imagination, more highly stimulated than when 
it fed only on things of earth, boldly makes a 
prey of the divine power and goodness, to the 
utter subversion of humble piety. A sanguine 
temper, quickened by perverted notions of re- 
ligion, easily impels a man to believe that he is 
privileged or skilled to penetrate the intentions 
of Providence towards himself; and the anticipa- 
tions he forms on this ground, acquire so much 
consistency by being perpetually handled, that 
he deems them to form a much more certain 
rule of conduct than he could derive from the 
forecastings of prudence, or even from the dic- 
tates of morality. 

Delusions of this kind are the real sources of 
many of those sad delinquencies which so often 
bring reproach upon a profession of religion. 
The world loves to call the offender a villain ; 
but in fact he was not worse than an enthusiast. 
He who in conducting the daily affairs of life 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 125 

has acquired the settled habit of calculating 
rather upon what is possible than upon what is 
probable, naturally slides into the mischievous 
error of paying court to Fortune, rather than to 
Virtue : nor will his integrity or his principles 
of honour be at all strengthened by the mere 
metonymy of calling Fortune — Providence. It 
is easy to fix the eye upon the clouds in expec- 
tation of help from above with so much intent- 
ness, that the tables of right and wrong, which 
stand before us, shall scarcely be seen. This 
very expectation is a contempt of prudence ; 
and it is not often seen that those who slight 
Prudence, pay much regard to her sister — 
Probity. 

Or if consequences so serious do not follow 
from the notion that the fortuities of life are an 
available fund at the disposal of the favourite of 
heaven, yet this belief can hardly fail to spread 
an infection of sloth and presumption through 
the character. The enthusiast will certainly be 
remiss and dilatory in arduous and laborious 
duties. Hope, which is the incentive to exertion 
in well-ordered and energetic minds, slackens 
every effort if the understanding be crazed. 
The wheel of toil stands still while the devotee 
implores assistance from above. Or if he pos- 
sesses more of activity, the same false principle 
prompts him to engage in enterprises from 
which, if the expected contingent to be fur- 
nished by " Providence," be deducted, scarcely 



126 ABUSES OF THE 

a shred of fair probability remains to recommend 
the scheme. 

If the course of events in human life were as 
constant and uniform as the phenomena of the 
material world, none but madmen would build 
their hopes upon the irregularities by which it is 
diversified. Nor would the enthusiast do so if he 
gave heed to the principles that impose order 
upon the apparent chaos of fortuities from which 
the many coloured line of human life is spun. 
To expose then the error of those who, on pre- 
text of faith in providence, build presumptuous 
expectations upon the throws of fortune, we 
must analyse the confused mass of contingences 
to which human life is liable. This analysis 
leaves the folly and impropriety of the enthusiast 
without excuse. 

Any one who recalls to his recollection the 
incidents, great and small, that have filled up the 
days of a year past, will find it easy to divide 
them into two classes, of which the first, and 
the larger, comprises those events which common 
sense and experience might have enabled him 
to anticipate, and which, if he were wise, he did 
actually anticipate, so far as was necessary for the 
regulation of his conduct. The ground of such 
calculations of futurity is nothing else than the 
uniform course of events in the material world, 
and the permanent principles of human nature, 
and the established order of the social system : 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 127 

for all these, though confessedly liable to many 
interruptions, are yet so far constant as to afford, 
on the whole, a safe rule of calculation. If there 
were no such uniformity in the course of events, 
the active and reasoning faculties of man would 
be of no avail to him ; for the exercise of them 
might as probably be ruinous as serviceable. In 
the whirl of such a supposed anarchy of nature, 
an intelligent agent must refrain from every 
movement, and resign himself to be borne along 
by the eddies of confusion. But this is not the 
character of the world we inhabit : the connexion 
of physical causes and effects is known and 
calculable, so that the results of human labour 
are liable to only a small deduction on account 
of occasional irregularities. We plant and sow, 
and lay up stores, and build, and construct ma- 
chines in tranquil hope of the expected benefit ; 
and indeed, if the variations and irregularities 
of nature were much greater and more frequent 
than they are, or even if disappointment were as 
common as success, the part of wisdom would 
still be the same ; for the laws of nature, though 
never so much broken in upon by incalculable 
accidents, would still afford some ground of ex- 
pectation ; and an intelligent agent will always 
prefer to act on even the slenderest hope which 
reason approves, rather than to lie supine in the 
ruinous wheel- way of chance. 

And notwithstanding its many real, and many 
apparent irregularities, there is also a settled 



128 ABUSES OF THE 

order of causes and effects in the human system, 
as well as in the material world. The foundation 
of this settled order is, the sameness of human 
nature in its animal, intellectual, and moral con- 
stitution, of which the anomalies are never so 
great as to break up all resemblance to the com- 
mon pattern. Then those conventional modes of 
thinking and acting which sway the conduct of 
the mass of mankind, strengthen the tendency to 
uniformity, and greatly counteract all disturbing 
causes. Then again the sanctioned institutions 
of society give stability and permanence to the 
order of events, and altogether afford so much 
security in calculating upon the future, that, 
whoever by observation and reflection has be- 
come well skilled in the ordinary movements of 
the machinery of life, may, with confidence and 
calmness, if not with absolute assurance of 
success, risk his most important interests upon 
the issue of plans wisely concerted. 

Skill and sagacity in managing the affairs of 
common life, or wisdom in council and command, 
is nothing else than an extensive and ready know- 
ledge of the intricate movements of the great 
machine of the social system ; and the high price 
which this skill and wisdom always bears among 
men, may be held to represent two abstractions; 
— first, the perplexing Irregularities of the system 
to which human agency is to be conformed ; and 
then, the real and substantial Uniformity of the 
movements of that system. For it is plain that if 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 129 

there were no perplexing irregularities, superior 
sagacity would be in no request ; or, on the other 
hand, if there were not a real constancy in the 
course of affairs, the greatest sagacity would be 
found to be of no avail, and therefore, would be 
in no esteem. 

There is then a substantial, if not an immov- 
able substratum of causes and effects, upon which, 
for the practical and important purposes of life, 
calculations of futurity may be formed. And 
this is the basis, and this alone, on which a wise 
man rests his hopes and constructs his plans : he 
well knows that his fairest hopes may be dis- 
sipated, and his best plans overthrown ; and yet, 
though the hurricanes of misfortune were a thou- 
sand times to scatter his labours, he will still go 
on to renew them in conformity with the same 
principles of calculation ; for no other principles 
are known to him, and the extremest caprices of 
Fortune will never so prevail over his constancy, 
as to induce him to do homage to Chance. 

The second, and the less numerous class of 
events that make up the course of human life, 
are those which no sagacity could have anti- 
cipated ; for though in themselves they were only 
the natural consequences of common causes, yet 
those causes were either concealed or remote, 
and were, to us and our agency, the same as if 
they had been absolutely fortuitous. By far the 
larger proportion of these accidents arises from 

K 



130 



ABUSES OF THE 



the intricate connexions of the social system. 
The thread of every life is entangled with other 
threads, beyond all reach of calculation. The 
weal and woe of each depends, by innumerable 
correspondences, upon the will, and caprices, 
and fortune, not merely of the individuals of his 
immediate circle, but upon those of myriads of 
whom he knows nothing. Or, strictly speaking, 
the tie of mutual influence passes, without a 
break, from hand to hand, throughout the human 
family: there is no independence, no insulation, 
in the lot of man ; and, therefore, there can be 
no absolute calculation of future fortunes ; for 
he whose will or caprice is to govern that lot 
stands, perhaps, at the distance of a thousand 
removes from the subject of it, and the attenu- 
ated influence winds its way in a thousand 
meanders before it reaches the point of its des- 
tined operation. 

Both these classes of events are manifestly 
necessary to the full development of the faculties 
of human nature. If, for example, there were 
no constancy in the events of life, there would 
be no room left for rational agency ; and if, on 
the other hand, there were no inconstancy, the 
operations of the reasoning faculty would fall 
into a mechanical regularity, and the imagina- 
tion and the passions would be iron-bound, as 
by the immobility of fate. It is by the admirable 
combination of the two principles of order and 
disorder, of uniformity and variety, of certainty 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 131 

and of chance ; that the faculties and desires are 
wrought up to their full play of energy and 
vivacity ; of reason and of feeling. But it is espe- 
cially in connexion with the doctrine of Provi- 
dence that we have at present to consider these 
two elements of human life ; and as to the first 
of them, it is evident that the settled order of 
causes and effects, so far as it may be ascertained 
by observation and experience, claims the respect 
and obedience of every intelligent agent; since 
it is nothing less than the will of the Author of 
nature, legibly written upon the constitution of 
the world. This will is sanctioned by immediate 
rewards and punishments ; health, wealth, pro- 
sperity, are the usual consequents of obedience; 
while sickness, poverty, degradation, are the 
almost certain inflictions that attend a negligent 
interpretation, or a presumptuous disregard of it. 
The dictates of prudence are in truth the com- 
mands of God; and His benevolence is vindicated 
by the fact that the miseries of life are, to a very 
great extent, attributable to a contempt of those 
commands. 

But there is a higher government of men, as 
moral and religious beings, which is carried on 
chiefly by means of the fortuities of life. Those 
unforeseen accidents which so often control the 
lot of men, constitute a superstratum in the 
system of human affairs, wherein, peculiarly, 
the Divine Providence holds empire for the 

k2 



132 ABUSES OF THE 

accomplishment of its special purposes. It is from 
this hidden and inexhaustible mine of chances — 
chances, as we must call them, that the Governor 
of the world draws, with unfathomable skill, the 
materials of his dispensations towards each indi- 
vidual of mankind. The world of nature affords 
no instances of complicated and exact contrivance, 
comparable to that which so arranges the vast 
chaos of contingencies as to produce, with un- 
erring precision, a special order of events adapted 
to the character of every individual of the human 
family* Amid the whirl of myriads of fortuities, 
the means are selected and combined for construct- 
ing as many independent machineries of moral 
discipline as there are moral agents in the world ; 
and each apparatus is at once complete in itself, 
and complete as part of a universal movement. 

If the special intentions of Providence towards 
individuals were effected by the aid of super- 
natural interpositions, the power and presence 
of the Supreme Disposer might indeed be more 
strikingly displayed than it is ; but his skill much 
less. And herein especially is manifested the 
perfection of the Divine wisdom, that the most 
surprising conjunctions of events are brought 
about by the simplest means, and in a manner so 
perfectly in harmony with the ordinary course of 
human affairs, that the hand of the Mover is ever 
hidden beneath second causes, and is descried 
only by the eye of pious affection. This is in 
fact the great miracle of providence — that no 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 133 

miracles are needed to accomplish its purposes. 
Countless series of events are travelling on from 
remote quarters towards the same point ; and 
each series moves in the beaten track of natural 
occurrences ; but their intersection, at the very 
moment in which they meet, shall serve, perhaps, 
to give a new direction to the affairs of an empire. 
The materials of the machinery of Providence 
are all of common quality ; but their combination 
displays nothing less than infinite skill. 

Having then these two distinguishable classes 
of events before us, namely, those which may be 
foreknown by human sagacity, and those which 
may not; it is manifest that the former exclusively 
is given to man as the sphere of his labours, and 
for the exercise of his skill ; while the latter is 
reserved as the royal domain of sovereign bounty 
and infinite wisdom. The enthusiast, therefore, 
who neglects and contemns those dictates of com- 
mon sense which are derived from the calculable 
course of human affairs, and founds his plans 
and expectations upon the unknown procedures 
of Providence, is chargeable not merely with folly, 
but with an impious intrusion upon the peculiar 
sphere of the divine agency. This impiety is shown 
in a strong light when viewed in connexion with 
those great principles which may be discerned, 
not obscurely, to govern the dispensations of 
Providence towards mankind. 



In the divine management of the fortuitous 



134 ABUSES OF THE 

events of life, there is, in the first place, visible, 
some occasional flashes of that retributive justice 
which, in the future world, is to obtain its long 
postponed and perfect triumph. There are in- 
stances which, though not very common, are 
frequent enough to keep alive the salutary fears 
of mankind, wherein vindictive visitations speak 
articulately in attestation of the righteous in- 
dignation of God against them that do evil. 
Outrageous villanies, or appalling profaneness, 
sometimes draw upon the criminal the instant 
bolt of divine wrath, and in so remarkable a 
manner that the most irreligious minds are 
quelled with a sudden awe, and confess the hand 
of God. And again there is just perceptible, as 
it were, a gleam of divine approbation, displayed 
in a signal rewarding of the righteous, even 
in the present life : a blessing " which maketh 
rich" rests sometimes conspicuously upon the 
habitation of disinterested and active virtue : 
"■ the righteous is as a tree planted by the rivers 
of water ; whatsoever he doeth, prospers." In 
these anomalous cases of anticipated retribution, 
the punishment or the reward does not arrive in 
the ordinary course of common causes ; but starts 
forth suddenly from that store-house of fortuities 
whence the divine providence draws its means of 
government. If the oppressor, by rousing the 
resentment of mankind, is dragged from the seat 
of power, and trodden in the dust ; or if the 
villain who " plotteth mischief against his 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 135 

neighbour on his bed/' is at length caught in his 
own net, and despoiled of his wrongful gains, 
these visitations of justice, though truly retribu- 
tive, belong plainly to the known order of causes 
and effects : they are nothing more than the 
natural issues of the culprit's course ; and there- 
fore do not declare the special interference of 
heaven. But there are instances of another 
kind, in which the ruin of villany or of violence 
comes speeding as on a shaft from above, which 
though seemingly shot at random, yet hits its 
victim with a precision and a peculiarity that 
proclaims the unerring hand of divine justice. 

In like manner there are remarkable recom- 
penses of integrity, of liberality, of kindness to 
strangers, and, most especially, of duty to parents, 
which arrive by means so remote from common 
probability, and yet so simple, that the approba- 
tion of Him who " taketh pleasure in the path of 
the just," is written upon the unexpected boon. 
There are few family histories that would not 
afford examples of such conspicuous retributions. 
Yet as they are confessedly rare, and administered 
by rules absolutely inscrutable to human penetra- 
tion, there can hardly be a more daring impiety 
than, in particular instances, to entertain the 
expectation of their occurrence. But the enthu- 
siast finds it hard to abstain, in his own case, 
from such expectations, and is tempted per- 
petually to indulge hopes of special boons in 
reward of his services, and is forward and 



136 ABUSES OF THE 



ingenious in giving an interpretation that natters 
his spiritual vanity to every common favour of 
providence ; the bottles of heaven are never 
stopped but to gratify his taste for fine weather ! 
A readiness to announce the wrath of heaven 
upon offenders, is a presumption which charac- 
terises, not the mere enthusiast, but the malign 
fanatic, and therefore comes not properly within 
our subject ; and yet the species of enthusiasm 
now under consideration is very seldom free 
from some such impious tendency. 

In the divine management of the fortuities of 
life, there may also be very plainly perceived 
a dispensation of moral exercise, specifically 
adapted to the temper and powers of the indivi- 
dual. No one can look back upon his own 
history without meeting unquestionable instances 
of this sort of educational adjustment of his lot, 
effected by means that were wholly independent 
of his own choice or agency. The casual meet- 
ing with a stranger, or an unexpected interview 
with a friend ; the accidental postponement of 
affairs ; the loss of a letter, a shower, a trivial 
indisposition, the caprice of an associate ; these, 
or similar fortuities, have been the determining 
causes of events, not only important in them- 
selves, but of peculiar significance and use in that 
process of discipline which the character of the in- 
dividual was to undergo. These new currents in 
the course of life proved, in the issue, specifically 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 137 

proper for putting in action the latent faculties 
of the mind, or for holding in check its dan- 
gerous propensities. Whoever is quite uncon- 
scious of this sort of overruling of his affairs by 
means of apparent accidents, must be very little 
addicted to habits of intelligent reflection. 

Doubtless every man's choice and conduct 
determine, to a great extent, his lot and occu- 
pation ; but not seldom, a course of life much 
better fitted to his temper and abilities than the 
one he would fain substitute for it, has, year 
after year, and in spite of his reluctances, fixed 
his place and employment in society ; and this 
unchosen lot has, if we may so speak, been con- 
structed from the floating fragments of other 
men's fortunes, drifted by the accidents of wind 
and tide across the billows of life, till they were 
stranded at the very spot where the individual 
for whom they were destined was ready to re- 
ceive them. By such strong and nicely fitted 
movements of the machine of Providence, it is 
that the tasks of life are distributed where best 
they may be performed, and its burdens appor- 
tioned where best they may be sustained. By 
accidents of birth or connexion, the bold, the 
sanguine, the energetic, are led into the front of 
the field of arduous exertion ; while by similar 
fortuities, quite as often as by choice, the pusil- 
lanimous, the fickle, the faint-hearted, are suf- 
fered to spend their days under the shelter of 
ease, and in the recesses of domestic tranquillity. 



138 ABUSES OF THE 

But who shall profess so to understand his 
particular temper, and so to estimate his talents, 
as might qualify him to anticipate the special 
dispensations of Providence in his own case ? 
Such knowledge, surely, every wise man will 
confess to be " too wonderful" for him. To the 
Supreme Intelligence alone it belongs to dis- 
tribute to every one his lot, and to " fix the 
bounds" of his abode. Yet there are persons, 
whose persuasion of what ought to be their place 
and destiny is so confidently held, that a long life 
of disappointment does not rob them of the fond 
hypothesis of self-love ; and just in proportion 
to the firmness of their faith in a particular pro- 
vidence, will be their propensity to quarrel with 
heaven, as if it debarred them from their right 
in deferring to realize the anticipated destiny. 
Presumption, when it takes its commencement 
in religion, naturally ends in impiety. 

Men who look no farther than the present 
scene, may, with less glaring inconsistency, vent 
their vexation in accusing the blindness and 
partiality of fate, which has held their eminent 
talents and their peculiar merits so long under 
the veil of obscurity; but those who acknow- 
ledge at once a disposing providence and a future 
life, might surely find considerations proper for 
imposing silence upon such murmurings of dis- 
appointed ambition. Let it be granted to a man 
that his vanity does not deceive him, when he 
complains that adverse fortune has prevented his 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 139 

entering the very course upon which nature fitted 
him to shine, and has, with unrelenting severity, 
confined him, year after year, to a drudgery in 
which he was not qualified to win even a com- 
mon measure of success : all this may be true ; 
but if the complainant be a Christian, he cannot 
find it difficult to admit that this clashing of his 
fortune with his capacities or his tastes may 
have been the very exercise necessary to insure 
his ultimate welfare. Who will deny that the 
reasons of the divine conduct towards those who 
are in training for an endless course must always 
lie at an infinite distance beyond the range of 
created vision ? Who shall venture even to sur- 
mise what course of events may best foster the 
germ of an imperishable life ; or who conjecture 
what contraventions of the hopes and interests of 
an individual may find their reasons and neces- 
sity somewhere in the wide universe of conse- 
quences incalculably remote ? 

Whether the promise " that all things shall 
work together for good to those who love God," 
is to be accomplished by perpetual sunshine or 
by incessant storms, no one can anticipate in his 
own case : or if any one were excepted, it must 
be the enthusiast, who might almost with cer- 
tainty calculate upon receiving a dispensation the 
very reverse of that which it has been the lead- 
ing error of his life to anticipate. He might 
thus calculate, both because his expectations 
are in themselves exorbitant and improbable; and 



140 ABUSES OF THE 

because the presumptuous temper from which 
they spring loudly calls for the rebuke of heaven. 

Amid the perplexities which arise from the 
unexpected events of life, we are not left without 
sufficient guidance ; for although, in particular 
instances, the most reasonable calculations are 
baffled, and the best plans subverted ; yet there 
remains in our hands the immutable rule of 
moral rectitude, in an inflexible adherence to 
which we shall avoid what is chiefly to be 
dreaded in calamity — the dismal moanings of a 
wounded conscience. " He that walketh up- 
rightly walketh surely," even in the path of 
disaster. And while, on the one hand, he steadily 
pursues the track which common prudence marks 
out ; and, on the other, listens with respectful 
attention to the dictates of honour and probity, 
he may, without danger of enthusiasm, ask and 
hope for the especial aids of Divine Providence, 
in overruling those events that lie beyond the 
reach of human agency. 

Prayer and calculation are duties never in- 
compatible, never to be disjoined, and never to 
shackle one the other. For while those events 
only which are probable ought to be assumed as 
the basis of plans for futurity ; yet, whatever is 
not manifestly impossible, or in a high degree 
improbable, may lawfully be made the object of 
submissive petition. Few persons, and none who 
have known vicissitudes, can look back upon past 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 141 

years without recollecting signal occasions on 
which they have been rescued from the impend- 
ing and apparently inevitable consequences of 
their own misconduct, or imprudence, or want 
of ability, by extraordinary interventions in the 
very crisis of their fate. Or, perhaps, they have 
been placed by accident in circumstances of peril, 
where, as it seemed, there remained not a possi- 
bility of escape. But while the ruin was yet in 
descent, rescue, which it would have been mad- 
ness to expect, came in to preserve life, fortune, 
or reputation, from the imminent destruction. 
That such conspicuous deliverances do actually 
occur is matter of fact ; nor will the Christian 
endure that they should be attributed to any 
other cause than the special care and kindness 
of his heavenly Father : and yet, as they belong 
to an economy which stretches into eternity, and 
as they are not administered on any ascertained 
rule, they can never come within the range of 
our calculations, or be admitted to influence our 
plans : a propensity to indulge such expectations 
belongs to infirmity of mind, and is in fact an 
intrusion upon the counsels of infinite wisdom. 

Nevertheless, so long as these extraordinary 
interventions are known to consist with the rules 
of the divine government, they may be contem- 
plated as possible without violating the respect 
that is due to its ordinary procedures; and may, 
therefore, without enthusiasm, be solicited in 
the hour of peril or perplexity. The gracious 



142 



ABUSES OF THE 



" Hearer of prayer/' who, on past and well re- 
membered occasions has signally given deliver- 
ance, may do so again, even when, if we think 
of our own imprudence, we have reason to expect 
nothing less than destruction. What are termed 
by irreligious men e the fortunate chances of 
life,' will be regarded by the devout mind as 
constituting a hidden treasury of boons, held at 
the disposal of a gracious hand for the incitement 
of prayer, and for the reward of humble faith. 
The enthusiast who, in contempt of common 
sense and of rectitude, presumes upon the exist- 
ence of this extraordinary fund, forfeits, by such 
impiety, his interest in its stores. But the 
prudent and the pious, while they labour and 
calculate in strict conformity to the known and 
ordinary course of events, shall not seldom find 
that, from this very treasury of contingences, 
God is " rich to them that call upon Him." 

In minds of a puny form, whose enthusiasm is 
commonly mingled with some degree of abject 
superstition, the doctrine of a particular provi- 
dence is liable to be degraded by habitual asso- 
ciation with trivial and sordid solicitudes. This 
or that paltry wish is gratified, or vulgar care 
relieved, ( by the kindness of providence ; ' and 
thanks are rendered for helps, comforts, deliver- 
ances, of so mean an order, that the respectable 
language of piety is burlesqued by the ludicrous 
character of the occasion on which it is used. 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 143 

The fault in these instances does not consist in 
an error of opinion, as if even the most trivial 
events were not, equally with the most consider- 
able, under the divine management ; but it is 
a perversion and degradation of feeling which 
allows the mind to be occupied with whatever is 
frivolous, to the exclusion of whatever is impor- 
tant. These petty spirits, who draw hourly, from 
the matters of their personal comfort or indul- 
gence, so many occasions of prayer and praise, 
are most often seen to be insensible to motives of 
a higher kind : they have no perception of the 
relative magnitude of objects ; no sense of pro- 
portion ; and they feel little or no interest in 
what does not affect themselves. We ought, 
however, to grant indulgence to the infirmity of 
the feeble : if the soul be indeed incapable of 
expansion, it is better it should be devout in 
trifles, than not devout at all. Yet these small 
folks have need to be warned of the danger of 
mistaking the gratulations of selfishness for the 
gratitude of piety. 

It is a rare perfection of the intellectual and 
moral faculties which allows all objects, great 
and small, to be distinctly perceived, and per- 
ceived in their relative magnitudes. A soul of 
this high finish may be devout on common occa- 
sions without trifling : it will gather up the 
fragments of the divine bounty, that " nothing 
be lost ;" and yet hold its energies and its soli- 
citudes free for the embrace of momentous cares. 






144 ABUSES OF THE 

If men of expanded intellect, and high feeling, 
and great activity are excused in their neglect of 
small things, this indulgence is founded upon a 
recollection of the contractedness of the human 
mind, even at the best. The forgetfulness of 
lesser matters which so often belongs to energy 
of character, is, after all, not a perfection, but a 
weakness; and a more complete expansion of 
mind, a still more vigorous pulse of life, would 
dispel the torpor of which such neglects are the 
symptoms. 

Thwarted enthusiasm naturally generates im- 
pious petulance. If we encumber the Providence 
of God with unwarranted expectations, it will be 
difficult not so to murmur under disappointment 
as those do who think themselves defrauded of 
their right. In truth, amidst the sharpness of 
sudden calamity, or the pressure of continued 
adversity, the most sane minds are tempted to 
indulge repinings which reason, not less than 
piety, utterly condemns. The imputation of 
defective wisdom, or justice, or goodness, to the 
Being of whom we can form no notion apart 
from the ideas of absolute knowledge, rectitude, 
and benevolence, is much too absurd to need a 
formal refutation ; and yet how often does it 
survive all the rebukes of good sense and reli- 
gion! So egregious and palpable an error could 
not find a moment's lodgment in the heart, if 
it did not meet a surface of adhesion where 



<i 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 145 

presumption has been torn away. The exagge- 
rations of self-love not quelled, but rather inflated 
by an enthusiastic piety, inspire feelings of per- 
sonal importance so enormous, that even the 
infinitude of the divine attributes is made to 
shrink down to the measure of comparison with 
man. When illusions such as these are rent and 
scattered, how pitiable is the conscious destitu- 
tion and meanness of the denuded spirit! with 
how cruel a shock does it fall back upon its true 
place in the vast system of providence ! 

Whoever entertains^ as every Christian ought, 
a strong and consoling belief of the doctrine of a 
Particular Providence, which cares for the wel- 
fare of each, should not forget to connect with 
that belief some general notions at least, of that 
system of Universal Providence which secures 
individual interests, consistently with the well- 
being of the whole. Such notions, though very 
defective, or even in part erroneous, may serve 
first to check presumption, and then to impose 
silence upon those murmurs which are its off- 
spring. 

A law of subordination manifestly pervades 
that part of the government of God with which 
we are acquainted, and may fairly be supposed 
to prevail elsewhere. Lesser interests are the 
component parts of greater ; and so closely are 
the individual fates of the human family inter- 
woven, that each member, however insignificant 

L 



146 ABUSES OF THE 

he may seem, sustains a real relationship of in- 
fluence to the community. The lot of each 
must therefore be shapen by reasons drawn from 
many, and often from remote quarters. Yet 
in effecting this complex combination of parts, 
infinite wisdom prevents any clashing of the 
lesser with the larger movements ; and we may 
feel assured that, on the grounds either of mere 
equity or of beneficence, the dispensations of 
Providence are as compactly perfect towards 
each individual of mankind as if he were the sole 
inhabitant of an only world. If Heaven, in its 
condescension, were to implead at the bar of 
human reason, and set forth the motives of its 
dealings towards this man or that, these motives 
might, no doubt, be alleged and justified in every 
particular, without making any reference to the 
intermingled interests of other men : and it 
might be shewn that, although certain events 
were in fact followed by consequences much 
more important to others than to the individual 
immediately affected, yet they did in the fullest 
sense belong to the personal discipline of the 
individual, and must have taken place irrespec- 
tively of those foreign consequences. 

This perfect fitting and finishing of the ma- 
chinery of Providence to individual interests, must 
be premised ; yet it is not less true that in almost 
every event of life the remote consequences vastly 
outweigh the proximate, in actual amount of im- 
portance. Every man prospers, or is overthrown, 



DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE. 147 

lives, or dies, not for himself; but that he may 
sustain those around him, or that he may give 
them place ; and who shall attempt to measure 
the circle within which are comprised these ex- 
tensive dependences ? On principles even of 
mathematical calculation, each individual of the 
human family may be demonstrated to hold in 
his hand the centre lines of an interminable 
web-work, on which- are sustained the fortunes 
of multitudes of his successors. These impli- 
cated consequences, if summed together, make 
up therefore a weight of human weal or woe 
that is reflected back with an incalculable mo- 
mentum upon the lot of each. Every one is 
then bound to remember that the personal 
sufferings or peculiar vicissitudes, or toils through 
which he is called to pass, are to be estimated 
and explained only in an immeasurably small 
proportion if his single welfare is regarded ; 
while their full price and value are not to be 
computed unless the drops of the morning dew 
could be numbered. 

Immediate proof of that system of interminable 
connexion which binds together the whole human 
family may be obtained by every one who will 
examine the several ingredients of his physical, 
intellectual, and social condition ; for he will not 
find one of these circumstances of his lot that is 
not, in its substance or quality, directly an effect 
or consequence of the conduct, or character, or 
constitution of his progenitors, and of all with 

l 2 



148 SYSTEM OF 

whom he has had to do : if they had been other 
than they were, he must also have been other 
than he is. And then our predecessors must, in 
like manner, trace the qualities of their being to 
theirs ; thus the linking ascends to the common 
parents of all ; and thus must it descend, still 
spreading as it goes, from the present to the 
last generation of the children of Adam. 

Nor is this direct and obvious kind of influence 
the only one of which some plain indications are 
to be discerned ; and without at all following 
the uncertain track of adventurous speculation, 
it may fairly be surmised that the same law of 
interminable connexion, a law of moral gravita- 
tion, stretches far beyond the limits of the human 
family, and actually holds in union the great 
community of intelligent beings. Instances of 
connexion immensely remote, and yet very real, 
might be adduced in abundance : the influence 
of history upon the character and conduct of 
successive generations is of this kind. Whatever 
actually imparts force or intensity to human 
motives, and by this means actually determines 
the course of life, may assuredly claim for itself 
the title and respect due to an efficient cause, and 
must be deemed to exert an impulsive power over 
the mind. Now the records of history, how long 
soever may have been the line of transmission 
which has brought them to our times, fraught as 
they are with instances applicable to all the occa- 
sions of real life, do thus, in a very perceptible 



UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE. 149 

degree, affect the sentiments and mould the 
characters of mankind ; nor will any one speak 
slightingly of this species of causation who has 
compared the intellectual condition of nations rich 
in history, with that of a people wholly destitute 
of the memorials of past ages. The story of the 
courage, or constancy, or wisdom of the men of a 
distant time becomes, in a greater or a less degree, 
a subsidiary cause of the conduct of the men of 
each succeeding generation. Thus the few indi- 
viduals in every age to whom it has happened to 
live, and act, and speak under the focus of the 
speculum of history, did actually live, and labour, 
and suffer for the benefit of mankind in all future 
times ; just as truly as a father toils for the 
advantage of his family. And if the whole amount 
of the influence which has in fact flowed from 
the example of the wise, the brave, and the good, 
could have been placed in prophetic vision before 
them, while in the midst of their arduous course, 
would not these worthies contentedly and gladly 
have purchased so immense a wealth of moral 
power at the price of their personal sufferings ? 

Here then, as a plain matter of fact, is an 
instance of boundless causation, connecting cer- 
tain individuals with myriads of their species, 
from age to age, and for ever. It is an instance, 
we say, and not more : for the voice of history 
is but a preluding flourish to that voluminous re- 
velation, which shall be made, in the great day 
of consummation, of all that has been acted and 



150 MYSTERIOUSNESS OF 

suffered upon earth's surface. In that day, when 
the books of universal history are opened and 
read, it shall doubtless be found that no particle 
has been lost of aught that might serve to au- 
thenticate the maxims of eternal wisdom, or to 
vindicate the righteous government of God. 
And all shall be written anew, as "with a pen of 
iron on the rock for ever," and shall stand forth 
as an imperishable lesson of warning or incite- 
ment to after-comers on the theatre of existence. 
Whatever degree of solidity may be attributed 
to considerations of this kind, they are at least 
sufficiently supported by analogies to give them 
a decided advantage over those petulant cavils 
wherewith we are prone to arraign the particular 
dispensations of Providence towards ourselves. 
Are such dispensations, when seen in small por- 
tions, mysterious and perplexing? How can they 
be otherwise if, in their completed measure- 
ments, they are to spread over the creation, and 
in their issues to endure for ever ? 

The common phrase — ' a mysterious dispensa- 
tion of Providence,' when used as most often it 
is, contains the very substance of enthusiasm ; 
yet, it must be confessed, of a venial enthusiasm ; 
for the occasions which draw it forth are of a kind 
that may be admitted to palliate a hasty impro- 
priety of language. To call any event that does 
not break in upon the known and established 
order of natural causes — mysterious, is virtually 



PROVIDENCE. 151 

to assume a previous knowledge of the intentions 
of the Supreme Ruler ; for it is to say that His 
proceedings have baffled our calculations ; and in 
fact it is only when we have formed anticipations 
of what ought to have been the course of events 
that we are tempted by sudden reverses to em- 
ploy so improperly this indefinite expression. 
All the dispensations of Divine Providence, taken 
together, may, with perfect propriety, be termed 
mysterious ; since all alike are governed by 
reasons that are hidden and inscrutable : but it 
is the height of presumption so to designate some 
of them in distinction from others. For ex- 
ample ; a man eminently gifted by nature for 
important and peculiar services, and trained to 
perform them by a long and arduous discipline, 
and now just entering upon the course of suc- 
cessful beneficence, and perhaps actually holding 
in his hand the welfare of a family, or a province, 
or an empire, is suddenly smitten to the earth 
by disease or accident. Sad ruin of a rare ma- 
chinery of intellectual and moral power ! But 
while the thoughtless many deplore for an hour 
their irreparable loss, the thoughtful few muse 
rather than weep ; and in order to conceal from 
themselves the irreverence of their own repinings, 
exclaim — 'How mysterious are the ways of 
heaven V Yes ; but in the present instance, what 
is mysterious ? Not that human life should at all 
periods be liable to disease, or the human frame 
be always, vulnerable ; for these are conditions 



152 



IDEA OF THE 



inseparable from the present constitution of our 
nature ; and it is clear that nothing less than a 
perpetual miracle could exempt any one class of 
mankind from the common contingences of 
physical life. The supposition of any such con- 
stant and manifest interposition, rendering a 
certain description of persons intactible by harm, 
would be impious as well as absurd. Nothing 
could suggest to a sane mind an idea of this sort, 
if it did not gain admittance in the train of those 
eager forecastings of the ways of God in which 
persons much addicted to religious meditation 
are prone to indulge, and which, though they 
may afford pleasure for a moment, are usually 
purchased at the cost of relapses into gloomy, or 
worse than gloomy discontents. 

There is a striking incongruity in the fact 
that the propensity to apply the equivocal term, 
mysterious, to sudden and afflictive events, like 
the one just specified, is indulged almost exclu- 
sively by the very persons whose professed prin- 
ciples furnish them with a sufficient explanation 
of such dispensations. If the present state were 
thought to comprise the beginning and the end 
of the human system, and if, at the same time, 
this system be attributed to the Supreme Intel- 
ligence, then indeed the prodigious waste and 
destruction which is continually taking place, 
not only of the germ of life, but of the rarest 
and of the most excellent specimens of Divine 
art, is a solecism that must baffle every attempt 



FUTURE LIFE. 153 

at explanation. Let then the deist, who knows 
of nothing beyond death, talk of the mysteries 
of Providence ; but let not the Christian, who is 
taught to think little of the present, and much 
of the future, use language of this sort. 

A popular misunderstanding of the language 
of Scripture relative to the future state, has, 
perhaps, had great influence in enhancing the 
gloom and perplexity with which Christians are 
wont to think and speak of sudden and afflictive 
visitations of Providence. 

Heaven — the ultimate and perfected condition 
of human nature, is thought of amidst the toils 
of life, as an elysium of quiescent bliss, exempt, 
if not from action, at least from the necessity of 
action. Meanwhile every one feels that the ruling 
tendency and the uniform intention of all the 
arrangements of the present state, and of almost 
all its casualties, is to generate and to cherish 
habits of strenuous exertion. Inertness, not less 
than vice, stamps upon its victim the seal of per- 
dition. The whole order of nature, and all the 
institutions of society, and the ordinary course of 
events, and the explicit will of God, declared in 
His word, concur in opposing that propensity to 
rest which belongs to the human mind ; and 
combine to necessitate submission to the hard, 
yet salutary conditions under which alone the 
most extreme evils may be held in abeyance, and 
any degree of happiness enjoyed. A task and 



154 IDEA OF THE 

duty is to be fulfilled, in discharging which the 
want of energy is punished even more imme- 
diately and more severely than the want of 
virtuous motives. 

Here then is visible a great and serious incon- 
gruity between matter of fact, and the common 
anticipations of the future state : it deserves in- 
quiry therefore whether these anticipations are 
really founded on the evidence of Scripture ; or 
whether they are not rather the mere suggestions 
of a sickly spiritual luxuriousness. This is not the 
place for pursuing such an inquiry ; but it may 
be observed, in passing, that those glimpses of 
the supernal world which we catch from the 
Scriptures have in them, certainly, quite as much 
of the character of history as of poetry, and im- 
part the idea — not that there is less of business 
in heaven than on earth ; but more. Unques- 
tionably the felicity of those beings of a higher 
order, to whose agency frequent allusions are 
made by the inspired writers, is not incompa- 
tible with the assiduities of a strenuous ministry, 
to be discharged, according to the best ability of 
each, in actual and arduous contention with 
formidable, and perhaps sometimes successful 
opposition. A poetic notion of angelic agency, 
having in it nothing substantial, nothing neces- 
sary, nothing difficult, and which consists only in 
an unreal show of action and movement, and in 
which the result would be precisely the same 
apart from the accompaniment of a swarm of 



FUTURE LIFE. 155 

butterfly youths, must be spurned by reason, as 
it is unwarranted by Scripture. Scripture does 
not affirm or imply that the plenitude of divine 
power is at all in more immediate exercise in the 
higher world than in this : on the contrary, the 
revelation so distinctly made of a countless array 
of intelligent and vigorous agents, designated 
usually by an epithet of martial signification, 
precludes such an idea. Why a commission of 
subalterns ; why an attendance of celestials upon 
the flight of the bolt of omnipotence ? That bolt, 
when actually flung, needs no coadjutor ! 

But if there be a real and necessary, not 
merely a shadowy agency in heaven as well as on 
earth ; and if human nature is destined to act its 
part in such an economy; then its constitution, 
and the severe training it undergoes, are at once 
explained ; and then also, the removal of indivi- 
duals in the very prime of their fitness for useful 
labour ceases to be impenetrably mysterious. 
This excellent mechanism of matter and mind, 
which, beyond any other of His works, declares 
the wisdom of the Creator, and which, under His 
guidance, is now passing the season of its first 
preparation, shall stand up anew from the dust 
of dissolution, and then, with freshened powers, 
and with a store of hard-earned practical wisdom 
for its guidance, shall essay new labours — we say 
not perplexities and perils, in the service of God, 
who by such instruments chooses to accomplish 
His designs of beneficence. That so prodigious 



156 IDEA OF THE 

a waste of the highest qualities should take place 
as is implied in the notions which many Christians 
entertain of the future state, is indeed hard to 
imagine. The mind of man, formed as it is to be 
more tenacious of its active habits than even of 
its moral dispositions, is, in the present state, 
trained (often at an immense cost of suffering) to 
the exercise of skill, of forethought, of courage, 
of patience ; and ought it not to be inferred, un- 
less positive evidence contradicts the supposition, 
that this system of education bears some rela- 
tion of fitness to the state for which it is an 
initiation ? Shall not the very same qualities 
which here are so sedulously fashioned and 
finished, be actually needed and used in that 
future world of perfection ? Surely the idea is 
inadmissible that an instrument wrought up, at 
so much expense to a polished fitness for service, 
is destined to be suspended for ever on the 
palace walls of heaven, as a glittering bauble, no 
more to make proof of its temper ! 

A pious, but needless jealousy, lest the honour 
due to Him " who worketh all in all " should 
be in any degree compromised, has perhaps had 
influence in concealing from the eyes of Chris- 
tians the importance attributed in the Scriptures 
to subordinate agency; and thus, by a natural 
consequence, has impoverished and enfeebled our 
ideas of the heavenly state. But assuredly it 
is only while encompassed by the dimness and 
errors of the present life that there can be any 



FUTURE LIFE. 157 

danger of attributing to the creature the glory 
due to the Creator. When once with open eye 
that " excellent glory" has been contemplated, 
then shall it be understood that the divine wis- 
dom is incomparably more honoured by the skil- 
ful and faithful performances, and by the cheerful 
toils of agents who have been fashioned and 
fitted for service, than it could be by the bare 
exertions of irresistible power : and then, when 
the absolute dependence of creatures is tho- 
roughly felt, may the beautiful orders of the 
heavenly hierarchy, rising, and still rising to- 
wards perfection, be seen and admired without 
hazard of forgetting Him who alone is absolutely 
perfect, and who is the only fountain and first 
cause of whatever is excellent. 

The Scriptures do indeed most explicitly de- 
clare, not only that virtue will be inamissible in 
heaven, but that its happiness will be unalloyed 
by fear, or pain, or want. But the mental asso- 
ciations formed in the present state make it so 
difficult to disjoin the idea of suffering and of 
sorrow from that of labour, and of arduous and 
difficult achievement, that we are prone to ex- 
clude action, as well as pain, from our idea of the 
future blessedness. Yet assuredly these notions 
may be separated ; and if it be possible to ima- 
gine a perfect freedom from selfish solicitudes, 
a perfect acquiescence in the will, and a perfect 
confidence in the wisdom, power, and goodness of 
God ; then also may we conceive of toils without 



158 IDEA OF THE FUTURE LIFE. 

sadness, of perplexities without perturbations, 
and of difficult or perilous service, without de- 
spondency or fear. The true felicity of beings 
furnished with moral sensibilities, must consist 
in the full play of the emotions of love, fixed on 
the centre of good; and this kind of happiness 
is unquestionably compatible with any external 
condition, not positively painful : perhaps even 
another step might be taken ; but the argument 
does not need it. Yet it should be remembered, 
that, in many signal and well-attested instances, 
the fervour of the religious affections has almost or 
entirely obliterated the consciousness of physical 
suffering, and has proved its power to vanquish 
every inferior emotion, and to fill the heart with 
heaven, even amid the utmost intensities of pain. 
Much more then may these affections, when 
freed from every shackle, when invigorated by an 
assured possession of endless life, and when height- 
ened by the immediate vision of the supreme ex- 
cellence, yield a fulness of joy, consistently with 
many vicissitudes of external position. 

Considerations such as these, if at all borne 
out by evidence of Scripture, may properly have 
place in connexion with the topic of this section ; 
for it is evident that the harassing perplexities 
which arise from the present dispensations of 
Providence might be greatly relieved by habitu- 
ally entertaining anticipations of the future state, 
somewhat less imbecile and luxurious than those 
commonly admitted by Christians. 



SECTION VII, 

ENTHUSIASM OF BENEFICENCE. 

To say that the principle of disinterested 
benevolence had never been known among men 
before the publication of Christianity would be 
an exaggeration ; — an exaggeration very similar 
to that of affirming that the doctrine of immor- 
tality was new to mankind when taught by our 
Lord. In truth, the one had, in every age, been 
imperfectly practised, and the other dimly sup- 
posed; yet neither the one principle nor the 
other existed in sufficient strength to be the 
source of substantial benefit to mankind. But 
Christ, while he emphatically " brought life and 
immortality to light," and so claimed to be the 
author of hope for man, did also with such effect 
lay the hand of his healing power upon the 
human heart, long palsied by sensualities and 
selfishness, that it has ever since shed forth a 
fountain of active kindness, largely available for 
the relief of want and misery. 

As matter of history, unquestionable and con- 
spicuous, Christianity has in every age fed the 
hungry, and clothed the naked, and redeemed 
the captive, and visited the sick. It has put 



160 MOTIVES OF 

to shame the atrocities of the ancient popular 
amusements, and annihilated sanguinary rites, 
and brought slavery into disesteem and disuse, 
and abolished excruciating punishments : it has 
even softened the ferocity of war; and, in a 
word, is seen constantly at work, edging away 
oppressions, and moving on towards the perfect 
triumph which avowedly it meditates — that of 
removing from the earth every woe which the 
inconsideration or the selfishness, or the malig- 
nancy of man inflicts upon his fellows. 

It remains then to ask by what special means 
has Christianity effected these ameliorations ? 
and it will be found that the power and success 
of the new principle of benevolence, taught in 
the Scriptures, are not more remarkable than are 
its constitution and its ingredients. Christian 
philanthropy, though it takes up among its 
elements the native benevolence of the human 
heart, is a compound principle, essentially dif- 
fering from the spontaneous sympathies of our 
nature. Now, as this new and composite bene- 
volence has, by a trial of eighteen centuries, and 
under every imaginable diversity of circumstance, 
proved its practical efficiency, and its immense 
superiority over the crude elementary principle of 
kindness, it would be a violation of the acknow- 
ledged methods of modern science to adhere 
pertinaciously to the old and inefficient element, 
and to contemn the improved principle. All we 
have to do on an occasion wherein the welfare of 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 161 

our fellows is so deeply interested, is to take care 
that our own benevolence, and the benevolence 
which we recommend to others, is of the true 
and genuine sort ; in other words, that it is 
Christian. If, as every one would profess, we 
desire to live, not for selfish pleasure, but to 
promote the happiness of others, if we would 
become, not idle well-wishers to our species, not 
closet philanthropists, dreaming of impracticable 
reforms, and grudging the cost of effective relief; 
but real benefactors to mankind, we must take 
up the lessons of New Testament philanthropy, 
just as they lie on the page before us, and with- 
out imagining simpler methods, follow humbly 
in the track of experience. By this book alone 
have men been effectively taught to do good. 

A low rate of activity, prompted merely by 
the spontaneous kindness of the heart, may easily 
take place without incurring the danger of 
enthusiastical excesses ; but how is enough of 
moral movement to be obtained for giving im- 
pulse to a course of arduous and perilous labours, 
such as the woes of mankind often call for, and 
yet without generating the extravagances of a 
false excitement ? This is a problem solved only 
by the Christian scheme, and in briefly enumer- 
ating the peculiarities of the benevolence which 
it inspires, we shall not fail to catch a glimpse, at 
least, of that profound skill which makes provi- 
sion, on the one side against inertness and selfish- 
ness, and on the other against enthusiasm. 

M 



162 MOTIVES OF 

The peculiaiities of Christian philanthropy are 
such as these ; it is vicarious ; obligatory ; re- 
wardable ; subordinate to an efficient agency, 
and an expression of grateful love. 

I. The great principle of vicarious suffering, 
which forms the centre of Christianity, spreads 
itself through the subordinate parts of the system, 
and is the pervading, if not the invariable law of 
Christian beneficence. 

The spontaneous sympathies of human nature, 
when they are vigorous enough to produce the 
fruits of charity, rest on an expectation of an 
opposite kind ; for we first seek to dispel from our 
own bosoms the uneasy sensation of pity ; then 
look for the gratitude of the wretch we have 
solaced, and for the approbation of spectators ; 
and then take a sweet after-draught of self-com- 
placency. But the Christian virtue of bene- 
ficence stands altogether on another ground ; 
and its doctrine is this, that, whoever would 
remedy misery must himself suffer ; and that the 
pains of the vicarious benefactor are generally 
to bear proportion to the extent or malignity of 
the evils he labours to remove : so that while 
the philanthropist who undertakes the cure only 
of the transient ills of the present life, may 
encounter no greater amount of toils or dis- 
couragements than are amply recompensed by 
the immediate gratifications of successful benevo- 
lence, he who, with a due sense of the greatness 



A 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 163 

of the enterprise, devotes himself to the removal 
of the moral wretchedness in which human nature 
is involved, will find that the sad quality of these 
deeper woes is in a manner reflected back upon 
himself; and that to touch the substantial mise- 
ries of degenerate man is to come within the 
infection of infinite sorrow. 

And this is the law of success in the Christian 
ministry — that highest work of philanthropy. 
Every right-minded and heaven-commissioned 
minister of religion is " baptized with the baptism 
wherewith his Lord was baptized." In an in- 
ferior, yet a real sense, he is, like his Lord, a 
vicarious person, and has freely undergone a 
suretyship for the immortal welfare of his fellow- 
men. He has charged himself with a respon- 
sibility that can never be absolutely acquitted 
while any power of exertion, or faculty of endu- 
rance is held back from the service. The in- 
terests which rest in his hand, and depend on 
his skill and fidelity — depend, as truly as if divine 
agency had no part in the issue, are as momen- 
tous as infinity can make them ; nor are to be 
promoted without a willingness to do and to 
bear the utmost of which humanity is capable. 
Although the vicar of Christ be not uncondi- 
tionally responsible for the happy result of his 
labours, he is clearly bound, both by the terms 
of his engagement and the very quality of the 
work, to surrender whatever he may possess 
that has in it a virtue to purchase success ; and 

m 2 



164 MOTIVES OF 

he knows that, by the great law of the spiritual 
world, the suffering of a substitute enters into 
the procedures of redemption. 

He who " took our sorrows and bore our 
griefs/' left, for the instruction of his servants, 
a perfect model of what should ordinarily be, 
a life of beneficence. Every circumstance of 
privation, of discouragement, of insult, of deadly 
hostility, which naturally fell in the way of a 
ministry like his, exercised among a people, pro- 
fligate, malignant, and fanatical, was endured by 
him as submissively as if no extraordinary powers 
of relief or defence had been at his disposal. 

On the very same conditions of unmitigated 
toil and suffering he consigned the publication 
of his religion to his Apostles : " Ye shall be 
hated of all nations for my name's sake : Who- 
soever killeth you shall think that he doeth God 
service : Behold, I send you forth as sheep 
among wolves." Though endowed with an opu- 
lence of supernatural power for the attestation 
of their commission, the Apostles possessed none 
for the alleviation of their own distresses ; none 
which might tend to generate a personal enthu- 
siasm by leading them to think that they, as 
individuals, were the darlings of heaven. And 
in fact they daily found themselves, even while 
wielding the arm of omnipotence, exposed to the 
extremest pressures of want, to pain, to destitu- 
tion, to contempt. " Even unto this present 
hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, 






A 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 165 

and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling 
place." Such was the deplorable lot, such to 
his last year of houseless wanderings, houseless 
except when a dungeon was his home, of the 
most honoured of heaven's agents on earth. 
Such was the life of the most successful of all 
philanthropists ! 

Nor have the conditions of eminent service 
been relaxed : the value of souls is not lowered ; 
and as the " sacrifice once offered" for the sins 
of the world remains in undiminished efficacy, so, 
in the process of diffusing the infinite benefit, the 
rule originally established continues in force ; 
and although reasons drawn from the diversity 
of character and of natural strength, among those 
who are the servants of God, may occasion great 
apparent differences in the amount of suffering 
severally endured by them, it is always true that 
the path of Christian beneficence is more beset 
than the common walks of life with disheartening 
reverses. Whoever freely takes up the cause of 
the wretched, is left to feel the grievous pressure 
of the burden. The frustration of his plans by 
the obstinate folly of those whom he would fain 
serve, the apathy, the remissness, or the sinister 
oppositions of professed coadjutors, the danger- 
ous hostility of profligate power, and worse than 
all, the secret misgivings of an exhausted spirit ; 
these, and whatever other instruments of torture 
Disappointment may hold in her hand or have 
in reserve, are the furniture of the theatre on 






166 MOTIVES OF 

which the favourite virtue of heaven is to* pass its 
trial. 

But this stern law of vicarious charity is 
altogether opposed to the expectations of inex- 
perienced and ardent minds. Among the few 
who devote themselves zealously to the service of 
mankind, a large proportion derive their activity 
from that constitutional fervour which is the 
physical cause of enthusiasm. In truth, a pro- 
pensity rather to indulge the illusions of hope, 
than to calculate probabilities, may seem almost 
a necessary qualification for those who, in this 
world of abounding evil, are to devise the means 
of checking its triumphs. To raise fallen hu- 
manity from its degradation, to rescue the 
oppressed, to deliver the needy, to save the 
lost, are enterprises, for the most part, so little 
recommended by a fair promise of success, that 
few will engage in them but those who, by a 
happy infirmity of the reasoning faculty, are 
prone to hope where cautious men despond. 

Thus furnished for their work by a constitu- 
tional contempt of frigid prudence, and engaged 
cordially in services which seem to give them a 
peculiar interest in the favour of heaven, it is 
only natural that benevolent enthusiasts should 
cherish secret, if not avowed hopes, of extraordi- 
nary aids and interpositions of a kind not com- 
patible with the constitution of the present state, 
and not warranted by promise of Scripture. Or 
if the kind-hearted visionary neither asks nor 



i 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 167 

expects any peculiar protection of his person, nor 
any exemption from the common hazards and ills 
of life, he yet clings with fond pertinacity to the 
hope of a semi-miraculous interference on those 
occasions in which the work, rather than the 
agent, is in peril. Even the genuineness of his 
benevolence leads the amiable enthusiast into 
this error. To achieve the good he has designed 
does indeed occupy all his heart, to the exclusion 
of every selfish thought : what price of personal 
suffering would he not pay, might he so pur- 
chase the needful miracle of help ! How piercing 
then is the anguish of his soul when that help is 
withheld ; when his fair hopes and fair designs 
are overthrown by an hostility that might have 
been restrained, or by a casualty that might have 
been diverted ! 

Few, perhaps, who suffer chagrins like this, 
altogether avoid a relapse into religious — we 
ought to say, irreligious, despondency. The first 
fault, that of misunderstanding the unalterable 
rules of the divine government, is followed by 
a worse, that of fretting against them. When 
the sharpness of disappointment disperses enthu- 
siasm, the whole moral constitution often be- 
comes infected with the gall of discontent. 
Querulous regrets take place of active zeal ; 
and at length vexation, much more than a real 
exhaustion of strength, renders the once laborious 
philanthropist " weary in well doing." 

And yet, not seldom, a happy renovation of 



168 MOTIVES OF 

motives takes place in consequence of the failures 
to which the enthusiast has exposed himself. 
Benevolent enterprises were commenced, per- 
haps, in all the fervour of exorbitant hopes ; 
the course of nature was to be diverted, and 
a new order of things to take place, in which, 
what human efforts failed to accomplish, should 
be achieved by the ready aid of heaven. But 
Disappointment, as merciless to the venial errors 
of the good, as to the mischievous plots of 
the wicked, scatters the project in a moment. 
Then the selfish, and the inert, exult ; and the 
half-wise pick up fragments from the desolation, 
wherewith to patch their favourite maxims of 
frigid prudence with new proofs in point ! 
Meanwhile, by grace given from above in the' 
hour of despondency, the enthusiast gains a 
portion of true wisdom from defeat. Though 
robbed of his fondly-cherished hopes, he has not 
been stripped of his sympathies, and these soon 
prompt him to begin anew his labours, on prin- 
ciples of a more substantial sort. Warned not 
again to expect miraculous or extraordinary aids 
to supply the want of caution, he consults pru- 
dence with even a religious scrupulosity ; for he 
has learned to think her voice, if not misunder- 
stood, to be in fact the voice of God. And now 
he avenges himself upon Disappointment, by ab- 
staining almost from hope. A sense of respon- 
sibility which quells physical excitement is his 
strength. He relies indeed upon the divine aid ; 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 169 

yet not for extraordinary interpositions, but for 
grace to be faithful. Thus better furnished for 
arduous exertion, a degree of substantial success 
is granted to his renewed toils and prayers. 
And while the indolent, and the over-cautious, 
and the cold-hearted, remain what they were ; or 
have become more inert, more timid, and more 
selfish than before, the subject of their self- 
complacent pity has not only accomplished some 
important service for mankind, but has himself 
acquired a temper which fits him to take rank 
among the thrones and dominions of the upper 
world. 

II. Christian philanthropy is obligatory. 

Natural benevolence is prone to claim the 
liberty and the merit that belong to pure 
spontaneity, and spurns the idea of duty or 
necessity. This claim might be allowed if the 
free emotions of kindness were sufficiently com- 
mon, and sufficiently vigorous, to meet the large 
and constant demands of want and misery. But 
the contrary is the fact ; and if it were not that 
an authoritative requisition, backed by the most 
solemn sanctions, laid its hand upon the sources 
of eleemosynary aid, the revenues of mercy would 
be slender indeed. Even the few who act from 
the impulse of the noblest motives, are urged on 
and sustained in their course of beneficence by a 
latent recollection that, though they move freely 
in advancing, they have no real liberty to draw 



170 MOTIVES OF 

back. If the entire amount of advantage which 
has accrued to the necessitous from the influence 
of Christianity could be computed, it would, no 
doubt, be found, that by far the larger share has 
been contributed, not by the few who might 
have done the same without impulsion ; but by 
the many, whose selfishness could never have 
been broken up except by the most peremptory 
appeals. To insure, therefore, its large purpose 
of good-will to man, the law of Christ spreads 
out its claims very far beyond the circle of mere 
pity, or natural kindness ; and in the most abso- 
lute terms demands, for the use of the poor, the 
ignorant, the wretched (and demands from every 
one who names the name of Christ) the whole 
residue of talent, wealth, time, that may remain 
after primary claims have been satisfied. On 
this ground, when the zeal of self-denying be- 
nevolence has laid down its last mite, it does 
not deem itself to have exceeded the extent of 
Christian duty ; but cheerfully assents to that 
rule of computing service which affirms that, 
" when we have done all, we are unprofitable 
servants ; having performed only what we were 
commanded." 

Manifestly for the purpose of giving the 
highest possible force and solemnity to that 
sense of obligation which impels the Christian to 
abound in every good work, the ostensible proof 
of religious sincerity, to be adduced in the mo- 
mentous procedures of the last judgment, is made 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 171 

to consist in the fact of a life of beneficence. 
Those, and those only, shall inherit the prepared 
blessedness, who shall be found to have nou- 
rished, and clothed, and visited the Lord in his 
representatives — the poor. The " cursed" are 
those who have grudged the cost of mercy. 

And it is not only true that the funds of 
charity have been, in every age, immensely 
augmented by these strong representations, and 
have far exceeded the amount which sponta- 
neous compassion would ever have contributed, 
but the very character of beneficence has been 
new modelled by them. In the mind of every 
well-instructed Christian, a feeling compounded 
of a compunctious sense of inadequate perform- 
ance, and a solemn sense of the extent of the 
divine requirements, repugnates and subdues 
those self-gratulations, those giddy deliriums, 
and that vain ambition, which beset a course of 
active and successful beneficence. This remark- 
able arrangement of the Christian ethics, by 
which the largest possible contributions and the 
utmost possible exertions are demanded in a tone 
of comprehensive authority, seems — besides its 
other uses, particularly intended to quash the 
natural enthusiasm of active zeal. It is a strong 
antagonist principle in the mechanism of motives, 
insuring an equilibrium, however great may be 
the intensity of action. We are thus taught 
that, as there can be no supererogation in works 
of mercy, so neither can there be exultation. 



172 MOTIVES OF 

Nothing, it is manifest, but humility, becomes a 
servant who barely acquits his duty. 

Let it, for example, have been given to a man 
to receive superior mental endowments, force 
of understanding, solidity of judgment, and 
richness of imagination, command of language, 
and graces of utterance; a soul fraught with 
expansive kindness, and not more kind than 
courageous ; and let him, thus furnished by 
nature, have enjoyed the advantages of rank 
and wealth, and secular influence ; and let it 
have been his lot, in the prime of life, to be sta- 
tioned just on the fortunate centre of peculiar 
opportunities; and then let it have happened 
that a fourth part of the human family — cruelly 
maltreated, stood as clients at his door, imploring 
help : and let him, in the very teeth of ferocious 
selfishness, have achieved deliverance for these 
suffering millions, and have given a deadly blow 
to the Moloch of blood and rapacity : and let 
him have been lifted to the heavens on the loud 
acclamations of all civilized nations, and blessed 
amid the sighs and joys of the ransomed poor, 
and his name diffused, like a charm, through 
every barbarous dialect of a continent. Let all 
this signal felicity have belonged to the lot of a 
Christian — a Christian well taught in the prin- 
ciples of his religion ; nevertheless, in the midst 
of his honest joy, he will find place rather for 
humiliation than for that vain excitement and 
exultation wherewith a man of merely natural 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 173 

benevolence would not fail, in like circumstances, 
to be intoxicated. Without at all allowing the 
exaggerations of an affected humility, the trium- 
phant philanthropist confesses that he is nothing; 
and far from deeming himself to have surpassed 
the requirements of the law of Christ, feels that 
he has done less than his duty. 

Christian philanthropy, thus boldly and solidly 
based on a sense of unlimited obligation, acquires 
a character essentially differing from that of spon- 
taneous kindness ; and while, as a source of relief 
to the wretched, it is rendered immensely more 
copious, is, at the same time, secured against the 
flatteries of self-love, and the excesses of enthu- 
siasm, by the solemn sanctions of an unbounded 
responsibility. 

III. A nice balancing of motives is obtained 
from an opposite quarter in the Christian doctrine, 
of the rewardableness of works of mercy. This 
doctrine, than which no article of religion stands 
out more prominently on the surface of the New 
Testament, having been early abused, to the hurt 
of the fundamentals of piety, has, in the modern 
Church, been almost lost sight of, and fallen into 
disuse, or has even become liable to obloquy ; so 
that to insist upon it plainly has incurred a charge 
of Pelagianism, or of Romanism, or of some such 
error. This misunderstanding must be dispelled 
before Christian philanthropy can revive in full 
force. 



174 MOTIVES OF 

Amidst the awful reserve which envelops the 
announcement of a future life by our Lord and 
his ministers, three ideas, continually recurring, 
are to be gathered with sufficient clearness from 
their hasty allusions. The first is, that the 
future life will be the fruit of the present, as 
if by a natural sequence of cause and effect. 
" Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." 
The second is, that the future harvest, though 
of like species and quality with the seed, will 
be immensely disproportioned to it in amount. 
" The things seen are temporal ; but the things 
unseen are eternal;" and the sufferings of the 
present time are to be followed by " a far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; " and 
those who have been " faithful over a few things, 
will have rule over many." The third is, that 
though the disparity between the present reward 
and the future recompense will be vast and in- 
calculable, yet will there obtain a most exact 
rule of correspondence between the one and the 
other, so that, from the hands of the " righteous 
Judge," every man will receive " severally accord- 
ing as his work has been." Nor shall even " a 
cup of cold water," given in Christian love, be 
omitted in that accurate account ; the giver shall 
" by no means lose his reward? 

Such are the explicit and intelligible engage- 
ments of Him whose commands are never far 
separated from his promises. It cannot then be 
deemed a becoming part of Christian temper to 



A 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 175 

indulge a scrupulous hesitancy in accepting and 
in acting upon the faith of these declarations. 
And as there is no real incompatibility or clashing 
of motives in the Christian system, any delicacy 
that may be felt, as if the hope of reward might 
interfere with a due sense of obligation to sove- 
reign grace, must spring from an obscured and 
faulty perception of scriptural doctrines. The 
intelligent Christian, on the contrary, when, in 
simplicity of heart, he calculates upon the pro- 
mises of Heaven; and when, with a distinct 
reckoning of the " great gain " of such an invest- 
ment, he " lays up for himself treasures that 
cannot fail ; " is, at the same time, taught and 
impelled by the strongest emotions of the heart, 
to connect his hope of recompense with his hope 
of pardon. And when the one class of ideas is 
thus linked to the other, he perceives that the 
economy which establishes a system of rewards 
for present services can be nothing else than an 
arbitrary arrangement of sovereign goodness, 
resolving itself altogether into the grace of the 
mediatorial scheme. The retribution, how ac- 
curately soever it may be measured out according 
to the work performed, must, in its whole 
amount, be still a pure gratuity ; not less so 
than is the gift of immortal life conferred without 
probation upon the aborigines of heaven. The 
zealous and faithful servant who enters upon 
his reward after a long term of labour, and 
the infant of a day, who flits at once from the 






176 MOTIVES OF 

womb to the skies, alike receive the boon of 
endless bliss in virtue of their relationship to the 
second Adam, " the Lord from heaven." Never- 
theless this boon shall conspicuously appear, in 
the one case, to be the apportioned wages of 
service, an exact recompense, measured, and 
weighed, and doled out in due discharge of an 
explicit engagement ; while in the other, it can 
be nothing but a sovereign bestowment. 

But it is manifest that this doctrine of future 
recompense, when held in connexion with the 
fundamental principle of Christianity — justifica- 
tion by faith, tends directly to allay and disperse 
those excitements which naturally spring up with 
the zeal of active benevolence. The series or 
order of sentiments is this : — 

The Christian philanthropist, if well instructed, 
dares not affect indifference to the promised re- 
ward, or pretend to be more disinterested than 
Apostles, who laboured, "knowing that in due 
time they should reap." He cannot think him- 
self free to overlook a motive distinctly held out 
before him in the Scriptures : to do so were an 
impious arrogance. And yet, if he does accept 
the promise of recompense, and takes it up as 
an inducement to diligence, he is compelled by 
a sense of the manifold imperfections of his ser- 
vices to fall back constantly upon the divine 
mercies as they are assured to transgressors in 
Christ. These humbling sentiments utterly re- 
fuse to cohere with the complacencies of a selfish 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 177 

and vain-glorious philanthropy, and necessitate a 
subdued tone of feeling. Thus the very height 
and expansion of the Christian's hopes send the 
root of humility deep and wide ; the more his 
bosom heaves with the hope of " the exceeding 
great reward," the more is it quelled by the con- 
sciousness of demerit. The counterpoise of op- 
posing sentiments is so managed, that elevation 
cannot take place on the one side without an 
equal depression on the other ; and by the coun- 
teraction of antagonist principles the emotions of 
zeal may reach the highest possible point, while 
full provision is made for correcting the vertigo 
of enthusiasm. 

If, in the early ages of the Church, the expec- 
tation of future reward was abused to the damage 
of fundamental principles, in modern times an 
ill-judged zeal for the integrity of those principles 
has produced an almost avowed jealousy towards 
many explicit declarations of Scripture : thus the 
nerves of labour are either relaxed by the with- 
drawment of proper stimulants, or are absolutely 
severed by the bold hand of antinomian delusion. 

Moreover, a course of Christian beneficence 
is one peculiarly exposed to reverses, to obstruc- 
tions, and often to active hostility ; and if the 
zeal of the philanthropist be in any considerable 
degree alloyed with the sinister motives of per- 
sonal vanity, or be inflamed with enthusiasm, 
these reverses produce despondency ; or oppo- 
sition and hostility kindle corrupt zeal into 

N 






178 MOTIVES OF 

fanatical virulence. The injection of a chemical 
test does not more surely bring out the element 
with which it has affinity, than does opposition, 
in an attempt to do good, make conspicuous the 
presence of unsound motives, if any such have 
existed. Has it not happened that when bene- 
volent enterprises have consisted in a direct 
attack upon systems of cruel or fraudulent op- 
pression, the quality of the zeal by which some 
were actuated in lending their clamours to the 
champions of humanity, has become manifest 
whenever the issue seemed doubtful, or the 
machinations of diabolical knavery gained a mo- 
mentary triumph ? Then, the partisans of truth 
and mercy, forgetful alas! of their principles, 
have broke out almost into the violence of poli- 
tical faction, and have hardly scrupled to employ 
the dark methods which faction loves. 

But there is a delicacy, a reserve, a sobriety, 
a humbleness of heart, belonging to the hope 
of heavenly recompense, which powerfully repels 
all such malign emotions. Who can imagine the 
circumstances and feelings of the great day of 
final reward, and think of hearing the approving 
voice of Him who " searches the heart," and at 
the same time be told by conscience that the zeal 
which gives life to his labours in the cause of the 
oppressed ferments with the gall and acrimony 
of worldly animosity, that this zeal prompts him 
to indulge in exaggerations, if not to propagate 
calumnies ; and exults much more in the over- 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 179 

throw of the oppressor, than in the redemption 
of the captive ? If the greatness of the future 
reward proves that it must be altogether " of 
grace, not of debt," then, unquestionably, must 
it demand in the recipient a temper purified from 
the leaven of malice and hatred. Thus does the 
Christian doctrine of future reward correct the 
evil passions incident to a course of benevolence. 

IV. Christian beneficence is only the subordi- 
nate instrument of a higher and efficient agency. 
" Neither is he that planteth any thing, nor he 
that watereth ; but God that giveth the in- 
crease." Such, on the scriptural plan, are the 
conditions of all labour, undertaken from motives 
of religious benevolence. But the besetting sin 
of natural benevolence is self-complacency and 
presumption. It is perhaps as hard to find sanc- 
timoniousness apart from hypocrisy, or bashful- 
ness without pride, as to meet with active and 
enterprising philanthropy not tainted by the 
spirit of overweening vanity. The kind-hearted 
schemer, fertile in devices for beguiling mankind 
into virtue, and rich in petty ingenuities, always 
well-intended, and seldom well-imagined, verily 
believes that his machineries of instruction or 
reform require only to be put fairly in play, and 
they will bring heaven upon earth. 

But Christianity, if it does not sternly frown 
upon these novelties, does not encourage them; 
and while it depicts the evils that destroy the 

n 2 



180 MOTIVES OF 

happiness of man as of much deeper and more 
inveterate malignity than that they should be 
remedied by this or that specious method, de- 
vised yesterday, tried to-day, and abandoned 
to-morrow, most explicitly confines the hope of 
success to those who possess the temper of mind 
proper to a dependant and subordinate agent. 
All presumptuous confidence in the efficiency of 
second causes is utterly repugnant to the spirit 
that should actuate a Christian philanthropist; 
and the more so when the good which he strives 
to achieve is of the highest kind. 

V. Lastly, Christian beneficence is the expres- 
sion of grateful love. The importance attributed 
throughout the New Testament to active charity 
is not more remarkable than is this peculiarity 
which merges the natural and spontaneous sen- 
timents of good-will and compassion towards our 
fellows in an emotion of a deeper kind, and 
virtually denies merit and genuineness to every 
feeling, how amiable soever it may appear, if it 
does not thus fall into subordination to that 
devout affection which we owe to Him who 
redeemed us by his sufferings and death. The 
reasons of this remarkable constitution of motives 
it is not difficult to perceive. For, in the first 
place, it is evident that the love of the Supreme 
Being can exist in the heart only as a dominant 
sentiment, drawing every other affection into its 
wake. Even the softest and purest tendernesses 



^■\ 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 181 

of our nature must yield precedence to the 
higher attachment of the soul; he who does 
not love Christ more than " father and mother, 
wife and children/' loves him not. Much more 
then must the sentiment of general benevolence 
own the same subordination. Again ; as the 
promise of future recompense, and the doctrine 
of dependance upon divine agency, elevate the 
motives of benevolence from the level of earth 
to that of heaven, they would presently assume 
a character of dry and visionary abstraction, un- 
less animated by an emotion of love belonging 
to the same sphere. Zeal without love were a 
preposterous and dangerous passion : but Chris- 
tian zeal must be warmed by no other love than 
that of Him who, " for our sakes became poor, 
that we through his poverty might be made 
rich." 

It has already been said that religious enthu- 
siasm takes its commencement from the point 
where the emotions of the heart are transmuted 
into mere pleasures of the imagination ; and 
assuredly the excitements incident to a course of 
beneficence are very fit to furnish occasions to 
such a transmutation. But the capital motive 
of grateful affection to Him who has redeemed 
us from sin and sorrow, prevents, so far as it is 
in active operation, this deadening of the heart, 
and consequent quickening of the imagination. 
The poor and the wretched are the Lord's re- 
presentatives on earth ; and in doing them good 



182 MOTIVES OF 

we cherish and express feelings which otherwise 
must lie latent, or become vague, seeing that He 
to whom they relate is remote from our senses. 

This motive of affection to the Lord makes 
provision, moreover, against the despondences 
that attend a want of success ; for although a 
servant of Christ may, to his life's end, labour 
in vain, although the objects of his disinterested 
kindness should " turn and rend him ;" yet, not 
the less, has he approved his loyalty and love ; 
approved it even more conspicuously than those 
can have done whose labours are continually 
cheered and rewarded by prosperous results. 
Affection, in such cases, has sustained the trial, 
not merely of toil, but of fruitless toil, than 
which none can be more severe to a zealous and 
devoted heart. 

It appears then that Christian benevolence 
contains within itself a balancing of motives, 
such as to leave room for the utmost imaginable 
enhancement of zeal without hazard of extrava- 
gance. In truth, it is easy to perceive that the 
religion of the Bible has in reserve a spring of 
movement, a store of intrinsic vigour, ready to 
be developed in a manner greatly surpassing 
what has hitherto been seen. Such a day of 
development shall ere long arrive, the time of 
the triumph of divine principles shall come, and 
a style of true heroism be displayed, of which 
the seeds have been long sown ; of which some 



^\ 



CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 183 

samples have already been furnished ; and which 
waits only the promised refreshment from above 
to appear, not in rare instances only, but as the 
common produce of Christianity, 

In the present state of the world and of the 
Church, when communications are so instanta- 
neous, and when attention is so much alive to 
whatever concerns the welfare of mankind, if it 
might be imagined that a great and sudden 
extension of Christianity should take place in the 
regions of superstition and polytheism ; and that 
yet no corresponding improvement of piety, no 
purifying, no refreshment, no enhancement of 
motives, should occur in the home of Christianity, 
there is reason to believe that the influx of ex- 
citement might generate a blaze of destructive 
enthusiasm. If every day had its tidings of 
wonder — the fall of popery in the neighbouring 
nations — the abandonment of the Mohammedan 
delusion by people after people in Asia — the 
rejection of idols by China and India ; and if 
these surprising changes, instead of producing 
the cordial joy of gladdened faith, were gazed 
at merely with an unholy and prurient curiosity, 
and were thundered forth from platforms by 
heartless declaim ers, and were grasped at by 
visionary interpreters of futurity ; then, from so 
much agitation, uncorrected by a proportionate 
increase of genuine piety, new prodigies of 
error would presently start up, new sects break 
away from the body, new hatreds be kindled ; 



184 MOTIVES, &C. 

and nothing scarcely be left in the place of 
Christianity but dogmas and contentions. Thus 
the cradle of religion in modern times would 
become its grave. 

But a far happier anticipation is with reason 
indulged ; for it may well be believed that the 
same Benignant Influence, which is to remove 
the covering of gross ignorance from the nations, 
shall, at the same moment, scatter the dim- 
ness that still hovers over the Church in its 
most favoured home : then, and under that 
influence, the fervours of Christian zeal may 
reach the height even of a seraphic energy, and 
without enthusiasm. 



! 



SECTION VIII. 

SKETCH OF THE ENTHUSIASM OF THE ANCIENT 
CHURCH. 

An intelligent Christian, fraught with scrip- 
tural principles in their simplicity and purity, 
but hitherto uninformed of Church history, 
who should peruse discursively the ecclesiastical 
writers of the age of Jerom, Ambrose, and 
Basil, would presently recoil with an emotion 
of disappointment, perplexity, and alarm. That 
within a period which does not exceed the reach 
of oral tradition, the religion of the Apostles 
should have so much changed its character, and 
so much have lost its beauty, he could not have 
supposed possible. He has heard indeed of the 
corruptions of popery, and of the enormous 
abuses prevalent in " the dark ages ;" and he 
has been told too, by those who had a special 
argument to prop, that the era of the secular 
prosperity of the church was that also of the inci- 
pient corruption of religion. But he finds in fact 
that there is scarcely an error of doctrine, or an 
absurdity of practice, ordinarily attributed to the 
popes and councils of later times, and commonly 



186 ENTHUSIASM 

included in the indictment against Rome, which 
may not, in its elements, or even in a developed 
form, be traced to the writings of those whose 
ancestors, at the third or fourth remove only, 
were the hearers of Paul and John. 

But after the first shock of such an unprepared 
perusal of the Fathers has passed, and when calm 
reflection has returned, and especially when, by 
taking up these early writers from the commence- 
ment, the progression of decay and perversion 
has been gradually and distinctly contemplated, 
then, though the disappointment will in great 
part remain, the appalling surmises at first 
engendered in the modern reader's mind, will be 
dispelled, and he will even be able to pursue his 
course of reading with pleasure, and to derive 
from it much solid instruction. Considerations 
such as the following will naturally present them- 
selves to him in mitigation of his first painful 
impressions. 

While contemplating in their infant state those 
notions and practices (of the third century, for 
example) which afterwards swelled into enormous 
evils, it is difficult not to view them as if loaded 
with the blame of their after issues ; and then it 
is hard not to attribute to their originators and 
promoters the accumulated criminality that should 
be shared in small portions by the men of many 
following generations. But the individuals thus 
unfairly dealt by, far from forecasting the con- 
sequences of the sentiments and usages they 



OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 187 

favoured, far from viewing them, as we do, dark- 
ened by the cloud of mischiefs that was heaped 
upon them in after times, saw the same objects 
bright and fair in the recommendatory gleam of a 
pure and a venerated age. The very abuses which 
make the twelfth century abhorrent on the page 
of history, were, in the fourth, fragrant with the 
practice and suffrage of a blessed company of 
primitive confessors. The remembered saints, 
who had given their bodies to the flames, had 
also lent their voice and example to those unwise 
excesses which at length drove true religion from 
the earth. Untaught by experience, the ancient 
church surmised not of the occult tendencies of 
the course it pursued, nor should be loaded with 
consequences which human sagacity could not 
well have foreseen.* 

Again. Human nature, which is far more uni- 
form than may be imagined, when suddenly it is 

* Each of the great corruptions of later ages took its rise in the 
first, second, or third century, in a manner which it would be harsh 
to say was deserving of strong reprehension. Thus the secular do- 
mination exercised by the bishops, and at length supremely by the 
bishop of Rome, may be traced very distinctly to the proper respect 
paid by the people, even in the apostolic age, to the disinterested 
wisdom of their bishops in deciding their worldly differences. The 
worship of images, the invocation of saints, and the superstition of 
relics, were but expansions of the natural feeling of veneration and 
affection cherished towards the memory of those who had suffered and 
died for the truth. And thus, in like manner, the errors and abuses 
of monkery all sprang, by imperceptible augmentations, from senti- 
ments perfectly natural to the sincere and devout Christian in times 
of persecution, disorder, and general corruption of morals. 



188 ENTHUSIASM 

beheld under some new aspect of time and coun- 
try, is also susceptible of much greater diversities 
of habit and feeling than those are willing to 
believe who have seen it on no side but one. 
This double lesson, taught by history and travel, 
should be well learned by every one who under- 
takes to estimate the merits of men that have 
lived in remote times, and under other skies. 

A caution against the influence of narrow pre- 
judice is obviously more needful in relation to the 
persons and practices of ancient Christianity, than 
when common history is the subject of inquiry ; 
for in whatever relates to religion, every one 
carries with him not merely the ordinary pre- 
possessions of time and country, but an unbending 
standard of conduct and temper, which he is 
forward to compare, in his particular manner, 
with whatever offends his notions of right. But 
though the rule of Scripture morals is unchange- 
able, and must be applied with uncompromising 
impartiality to human nature under every variety 
of circumstance, yet is it impracticable, at the dis- 
tance of upwards of a thousand years, so fully to 
calculate those circumstances, and so to perceive 
the motives of conduct, as is necessary for esti- 
mating fairly the innocence or the criminality of 
particular actions or habits of life. The question 
of abstract fitness, and that of personal blame- 
worthiness, should ever be kept apart : at least 
they should be kept apart when it is asked, and 
we are often tempted to ask it in the perusal of 



V 



OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 189 

Church history — May such men be deemed 
Christians, who acted and wrote thus and thus ? 
Before a doubt of this kind could be solved 
satisfactorily, we must know — what can never be 
known till the day of universal discovery, how 
much of imperfection and obliquity may consist 
with the genuineness of real piety ; and again, 
how much of real obliquity there might be under 
the actual circumstances of the case, in the con- 
duct in question. Who can doubt that if the 
memorials of the present times, copious, and yet 
inadequate as they must be, shall remain to a 
distant age, they will offer similar perplexities 
to the future reader, who, amidst his frequent 
admiration or approval, will be compelled to 
exclaim — But how may we think these men to 
have been Christians ? Christianity is in gradual 
process of reforming the principles and practices 
of mankind, and when the sanative operation 
shall have advanced some several stages beyond 
its present point, the notions and usages of our 
day, compared with the commands of Christ, as 
then understood, will, no doubt, seem incredibly 
defective. 

Perhaps it may be said, that in all matters of 
sentiment, depending on physical temperament, 
and modes of life, the people of the British 
islands are less qualified to appreciate the merits 
of the nations of antiquity than almost any 
other people of Christendom ; and perhaps, also, 
by national arrogance and pertinacity of taste, 



190 ENTHUSIASM 

we are less ready to bend indulgently to usages 
unlike our own than any other people. Stiff 
in the resoluteness of an exaggerated notion 
of the right of private judgment, we bring all 
things unsparingly to the one standard of be- 
lief and practice, or rather to our particular 
pattern of that standard, and do not, until our 
better nature prevails, own brotherhood with 
Christians of another complexion and costume. 
A somewhat austere good sense, belonging, first 
to the haughtiness and energy of the English 
character, then to the liberality of our political 
institutions, and lastly, but not least, to the all- 
pervading spirit and habits of trade, renders 
the style of the early Christian writers much 
more distasteful to us than it has proved to 
Christians of other countries. Moreover, recent 
enhancements of the national character, result- 
ing from the diffusion of the physical sciences, 
and from the more extended prevalence of com- 
mercial feelings, have placed those writers at a 
point much further removed from our predilec- 
tions than that at which they stood a century ago. 

But again : in abatement of the chagrin which 
a well-instructed Christian must feel in first 
opening the remains of ecclesiastical literature, 
it must be remembered, that these works offer a 
very defective image of the state of religion at 
the era of their production ; that is to say, of 
religion in its recesses, which are truly the 



OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 191 

homes of Christianity. Those who write are by 
no means always those among the ministers of 
religion, whom it would be judicious to select 
as the best samples of the spirit of their times. 
Moreover, it is the taste of a following age 
that has determined which among the writers 
of the preceding period should be transmitted 
to posterity ; and in many instances, it is mani- 
fest, that a depraved preference has given lite- 
rary canonization to authors whose ambition was 
much rather to shine as masters of a florid 
eloquence, than to feed the flock of Christ. It 
were therefore an egregious error to suppose 
that the spiritual character of the Church lies 
broadly on the surface of its extant literature: 
on the contrary, charity may reasonably find 
large room for pleasing conjectures relative to 
obscure piety, of which no traces are to be found 
on the pages of saints and bishops. The record 
of the spiritual church is " on high," not in the 
tomes that make our libraries proud. 

These and other considerations, which will 
present themselves to a candid and intelligent 
mind, cannot but remove much of the embar- 
rassment and disrelish that are likely to attend 
a first converse with ancient divinity. And the 
pious reader will proceed with heartfelt satisfac- 
tion to collect abundant evidence of the fact, 
which some modern sophists have so much la- 
boured to obscure, that the great principles of 
revealed religion, as now understood by the mass 



192 ENTHUSIASM 

of Christians, were then clearly and firmly held 
by the body of the Church. And he will rejoice 
also to meet with not less abundant and satis- 
factory proofs of the energy, purity, and in- 
tenseness of practical Christianity among a large 
number of those who made profession of the 
name. 

Nevertheless, after every fair allowance has 
been made, and every indulgence given to diver- 
sity of circumstance, and after the errors and 
disgraces of our own times have been placed in 
counterpoise to those of the ancient Church, 
there will remain glaring indications of a deep- 
seated corruption of religious sentiment, leaving 
hardly a single feeling proper to the Christian 
life in its purity and simplicity. It is not heresy, 
it is not the denial of the principal scriptural 
doctrines, that is to be charged on the ancient 
church ; the body of divinity held its integrity. 
Nor is it the want of heroic virtue that we 
lament. But a transmutation of the objects of 
the devout affections into objects of imaginative 
delectation had taken place, had rendered the 
piety of a numerous class purely fictitious, had 
tinged, more or less, with idealism, the religious 
sentiments of all but a few, and had opened the 
way by which entered, at length, the dense and 
fatal delusions of a superstition so gross as hardly 
to retain a redeeming quality. 

Not a few of the Christians of the third cen- 
tury, and multitudes in the fourth and fifth, 



11 



OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 193 

especially among the recluses, having lost the 
forcible and genuine feeling of guilt and danger 
proper to those who confess themselves trans- 
gressors of the Divine Law, and in consequence 
become blind to the real purport of the Gospel, 
fixed their gaze upon the ideal splendours of 
Christianity, were smitten with the phaze of 
beauty, of sublimity, of infinitude, of intellectual 
elevation, were charmed with its supposed doc- 
trine of abstraction from mundane agitations, 
and found within the sphere of its revelations 
unfathomable depths, where vague meditation 
might plunge and plunge with endless descents. 
Fascinated, deluded, and still blinded more by 
the deepening shades of error, they forgot almost 
entirely the emotions of a true repentance, and 
of a cordial faith, and of a cheerful obedience ; 
and in the rugged path of gratuitous afflictions, 
and unnatural mortifications, pursued a spectral 
resemblance of piety, unsubstantial and cold as 
the mists of night. 

While hundreds were fatally infatuated by 
this enthusiastic religion, the piety of thousands 
was more or less impaired by their mere admira- 
tion of it ; and very few altogether escaped the 
sickening infection which its presence spread 
through the Church.* 

* A volume might soon be filled with proofs of this assertion, 
drawn exclusively from the writings of those of the Fathers who 
retained most of the vigour of native good sense, and held nearest 

O 



194 ENTHUSIASM 

Modern writers of a certain class have expa- 
tiated with disproportionate amplification upon 
the open and flagrant corruptions which, as it is 
alleged, followed as a natural consequence from 
the secular aggrandizement of the clergy, when a 
voice from the heavens of political power said to 
the Church, ' Come up hither/ No doubt, an 
enhancement and expansion of pride, ambition, 
luxuriousness, and every mundane passion, took 
place at Rome, at Constantinople, at Alexandria, 
at Antioch, and elsewhere, when emperors, in- 
stead of oppressing, or barely tolerating the 
doctrine of Christ, bowed obsequiously to his 



to the purity of Christian doctrine. The works of Chrysostom 
would afford abundant illustration of this sort. Let his Epistle to 
the Monks be singled out, which contains many admirable instruc- 
tions and exhortations on the subject of prayer; and, with much 
propriety, recommends the practice of ejaculatory supplication. 
Nevertheless, there is scarcely a passage quoted from the Scriptures 
in this piece that is not distorted from its obvious and simple mean- 
ing, in such manner as would best comport with the practices and 
notions of the ascetic life. If the meaning put by Chrysostom upon 
the texts he adduces be the true one, then must a large part of the 
inspired writings be deemed utterly useless to those who have not 
abjured the duties of common life. Or if such persons may still be 
permitted to enjoy their part in the Scriptures, not less than the 
monks, then must we suppose a double sense throughout the Bible. 
In fact the notion of a double sense flowed inevitably from the 
monkish institution, and wrought immense mischief in the Church. 
This is an evil not wholly extinct. The epistle just referred to (Sa- 
ville's Chrysos. Vol. VII. p. 225) stands foremost in the ' Thesaurus 
Asceticus ' of the Jesuit Peter Possinus ; a collection affording 
abundant, and very curious illustration of the topics of this and the 
following section. 



OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 195 

ministers.* But the very same evils, far from 
being called into existence by the breath of 



* There is no need to question the truth of the following anecdote 
reported by Sulpitius, concerning St. Martin of Tours. The Empe- 
ror Maximus, a man of a haughty temper, and elate by victories 
over his rivals, had received the unworthy adulation of a crowd of 
fawning Bishops; while Martin alone maintained the apostolic 
authority. For when suits were to be urged, he rather commanded 
than entreated the royal compliance, and refused many solicitations 
to take a place with others of his order at the imperial table, saying, 
that he would not eat bread with a man who had deprived one em- 
peror of his throne, and another of life. But at length, when Max- 
imus excused his assumption of the purple by pleading the force that 
had been put upon him by the legions, the use he had made of power, 
and the apparent sanction of heaven in the successes with which he 
had been favoured, and stated also that he had never destroyed an 
enemy except in open fight, Martin, overcome by reason or by en- 
treaties, repaired to the royal banquet, to the very great joy of the 
Emperor. The tables were crowded by persons of quality ; among 
them, the brother and uncle of Maximus ; between these reclined one 
of Martin's presbyters ; he himself occupied a seat near the Emperor. 
During supper, according to custom, the waiter presented a goblet 
of wine to the Emperor, who commanded it rather to be offered to so 
holy a Bishop, from whose hand he expected and desired to receive 
it again. But Martin, when he had drank of the cup, handed it to 
his presbyter, not deeming any one present more worthy to drink 
after himself; nor would he have thought it becoming to his character 
had he preferred even the Emperor, or those next to him in dignity, 
to his own presbyter. It is added, that Maximus and his officers took 
this contempt in exceeding good part ! — Sulp. Sev. de Vita B. Martin. 
cap. xx. 

The same writer reports a not less characteristic incident in honour 
of the holy Bishop, in his dialogue concerning the miraculous powers 
of St. Martin. This personage, it seems, was in the habit of fre- 
quenting the palace, where he was always honourably entertained by 
the Empress, who not only hung upon his lips for instruction, but, in 
imitation of the penitent mentioned in the Gospels, actually bathed 
his feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair ; and he who 
never before had sustained the touch of woman, could not avoid 

o2 



196 ENTHUSIASM 

imperial favour, had reached a bold height even 
while the martyrs were still bleeding. And 
moreover, how offensive or injurious soever these 
scandals might be, either before or after the 
epoch of the political triumph of the cross, they 
did but scathe the exterior of Christianity. In 
every age the vices, always duly blazoned, of 
secular churchmen, have stained its surface. But 
when there has been warmth and purity within, 

her assiduities. She, unmindful of the state and dignity and splen- 
dours of her royal rank, lay prostrate at the feet of Martin, whence 
she could not be removed until she had obtained permission, first 
from her husband, and then b} T his aid from the Bishop, to wait upt 
him at table as his servant, without the assistance of any menial. The 
blessed man could no longer resist her importunities ; and the Em- 
press herself made the requisite preparations of the couch, and table, 
and cookery (in temperate style) and water for the hands ; and as he 
sat, stood aloof, and motionless, in the manner proper to a slave; with 
due modesty and humility, mixing and presenting the wine. And 
when the meal was ended, reverently collected the crumbs, which she 
deemed of higher worth than the delicacies of a royal banquet. Cap. 6. 
In how short a time may prodigious revolutions take place in the 
sentiments of men ! This monkish Bishop was removed by not more 
than three or four lives from the Apostle John ! And this humble 
Empress occupied the honours which, within the memory of the 
existing generation, had been sustained by the mother of Galerius ! 
It should be added, that the auditor of the story above related, 
shocked at the inconsistency of St. Martin in thus admitting the 
offices of a woman so near his devoted person, requires from the 
narrator an explanation ; who, in reply, reminds his friend, that the 
compliance of the Bishop with the solicitations of the Emperor and 
Empress was the price by which he obtained from the former release 
and grace for the persecuted Priscillianists. The best thing, by far, 
related of the Bishop of Tours, is his firmness in opposing persecution. 
There is great reason to believe that, in common with several of the 
most noted characters of Church history, his true reputation has been 
immensely injured by the ill-judged zeal of his biographer. 



OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 197 

the mischief occasioned by such evils has scarcely 
been more than that of giving point to the 
railleries of men who would still have scoffed, 
though not a bishop had been arrogant, or a 
presbyter licentious. 

Christianity lost its simplicity and glory in the 
hands of its most devoted friends long before the 
impure alliance between the Church and the 
world had taken place. The copious history of 
this internal perversion would afford a worthy 
subject of diligent inquiry ; and though materials 
for a complete explication of the process of cor- 
ruption are not in existence, enough remains to 
invite and reward the necessary labour. 

The enthusiasm of the ancient Church presents 
itself under several distinct forms, among which 
the following may be mentioned as the most con- 
spicuous : — The enthusiasm of Voluntary Mar- 
tyrdom ; that of Miraculous Pretension ; that of 
Prophetical Interpretation, or Millenarianism ; 
that of the Mystical exposition of Scripture ; 
and that of Monachism. Of these, the last, 
whether or not it was truly the parent of the 
other kinds, includes them all as parts of itself; 
for whatever perversions of Christianity were 
chargeable upon the sentiments and practices of 
the general Church, the same belonged by emi- 
nence to the recluses. A review of the principles 
and the ingredients of this system will better 
accord with the limits and design of this Essay, 



198 THE ANCIENT 

than an extended examination of facts under the 
separate heads just named. 

A strict equity has by no means always been 
observed by Protestant writers in their crimina- 
tions of the Romish Church. With the view of 
aggravating the just and necessary indignation of 
mankind against the mother of corruption, it has 
been usual to lay open the concealments of the 
monastery ; and with materials before him so 
various and so copious, even the dullest writer 
might cheaply be entertaining, eloquent, and 
vigorous. Meantime it is not duly considered, or 
not fairly stated, that the reprobation passes back, 
in full force, to an age much more remote than 
that of the supremacy of Rome. The bishops of 
Rome did but avail themselves of the aid of a 
system which had reached a full maturity without 
their fostering care ; a system which had been 
sanctioned and cherished, almost without an 
exception, by every father of the Church, eastern 
and western ; which had come down in its ele- 
ments even from the primitive age, and which 
had won for itself a suffrage so general, if not 
universal, that he must have possessed an extra- 
ordinary measure of wisdom, courage, and in 7 
fluence, who should have ventured beyond a 
cautious and moderated censure of its more 
obvious abuses.* 

* The Christians of Neocassarea are reproved by Basil for admitting 
too easily the slanders propagated by Satan, the Father of lies, against 



') 



MONACHISM. 199 

Every essential principle, almost every adjunct, 
and almost every vice of the monkery of the tenth 
or twelfth century, may be detected in that of the 
fifth : or if an earlier period were named, proof 
would not be wanting to make the allegation 
defensible.* But if it be affirmed that the actual 
amount of hypocrisy and corruption usually shel- 
tered beneath the roof of the monastery, was in- 
comparably greater in the later than in the earlier 
age, it should, as a counterpoise be stated, that 
in the later period the religious houses contained 
almost all the piety and learning that any where 
existed ; while in the former there was certainly 
as much piety without as within these seclusions; 
and much more of learning.f The monkery o the 
middle ages, moreover, stands partially excused 
by the dense ignorance of the times ; while that 

certain women of the monastic order, whose improprieties, aKocrfiia, 
if real, he does not wish to defend. It is evident that these converts 
of the good Gregory, though they wisely disliked the monkish system, 
scarcely ventured to do more than find fault with its glaring abuses. 
The same sort of measured and reserved reprehension may be found 
not seldom in those of the fathers who were the least inclined to the 
prevailing enthusiasm. 

* The life of St. Anthony, by the pious and respectable Athanasius, 
would alone afford ample proof of the assertion, that even in the third 
century the spirit of fanaticism, and the practices of religious knavery, 
had reached a height scarcely surpassed at any later period. 

f The first Christian monks followed the Essenes in this particular 
also, that they despised human science ; and it was not until learning 
had been driven from among secular persons, that it took refuge in 
monasteries. If the monks had avoided the infection of the philosophy, 
" falsely so called," which the Platonists brought into the Church, and 
instead, had given their leisure to the toils of biblical learning, they 
would not so soon and so completely have spoiled Christianity. 



200 ORIGIN OF THE 

of the ancient Church is condemned by the sur- 
rounding light, both of human and divine know- 
ledge. The very establishments which redeem the 
age of Roger Bacon from oblivion and contempt, 
do but blot the times of Gregory Nazianzen. 

Eusebius,* followed by several later writers, 
asserts, although in opposition to the most explicit 
evidence, and manifestly for the purpose of giving 
sanction to a system so much admired in his 
time, that the Christian sodalities were directly 
derived from those of the Essenes and Thera- 
peutics of Judaea and Egypt, whom he affirms to 
have been Christian recluses of the first century, 
indebted for their rules and establishment to 
St. Mark. The testimony of the Jew Philof 
gives conclusive contradiction to this sinister 
averment ; not to mention that of the elder Pliny, 
and of Josephus ; for the minute description given 
by that writer of the opinions and observances of 
the sect, besides that it is incompatible with the 
supposition that the people spoken of were 
Christians, was actually composed in the life- 
time of Paul and Peter, and the recluses are 
then mentioned as having long existed under the 
same regulations. Nevertheless the coincidence 
between the sentiments and practices of the Jewish 
and of the Christian monks, is far too complete 

* Hist. Ecclesiast. II. 16. See also Evan, Prcep. VIII. 11. The 
Romanists generally adopt this misrepresentation of Eusebius. 

f The passages from Philo, Josephus, and Pliny, are given at 






length by Prideaux, Connect. Part II. Book V. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 201 

and exact to be attributed either to accident, or 
merely to the influence of general principles, 
operating alike in both instances ; and the more 
limited assertion of Photius* may safely be 
adopted, who affirms that "the sect of Jews 
who followed a philosophic life, whether con- 
templative or active — the one called Essenes, the 
other Therapeutics, not only founded monasteries 
and private sanctuaries, o-efiveta, but laid down 
the rules which have been adopted by those 
who, in our own times, lead a solitary life." 

A reference to the previous existence of mo- 
nasticism among the Jews, in a very specious, 
and, in some respects, commendable mode, is 
indispensable to the forming of an equitable 
judgment of the conduct of those Christians in 
Palestine and Egypt, who first abandoned the 
duties of common life for the indulgence of their 
religious tastes.f They did but adopt a system 

* Bibliothec. Art. CIII. Philo. The annotator upon this article 
quotes Philo in illustration of the meaning of the word aefiveiov, 
which seems to have been the designation of the little chapel or 
oratory so frequently constructed in secluded situations by the devout 
Jews, for the exercises of piety ; and to which allusion is supposed to 
be made in the Gospels. See Bennet's Christian Oratory, and Camp- 
bell's Dissertations. Into these little sanctuaries no article of food, or 
accommodation for the body, was ever brought ; they differed there- 
fore from the cells of the hermits. 

f On the common and acknowledged principles of historical com- 
position, the practice which has so much prevailed of commencing 
Church history with the ministry of Christ, must be deemed unsatis- 
factory and improper. If the rise and progress of Christianity is to be 
understood as matter of history, the state of the Jews and the surround- 
ing nations in the preceding century should be fully depicted. 



202 MOTIVES OF THE 

already sanctioned by long usage, and which, 
though existing in the time of Christ and 
the Apostles, had not drawn upon itself from 
Him or them any explicit condemnation ; * and 
which might even plead a semblance of support 
from some of their injunctions, literally under- 
stood, though plainly condemned by the spirit 
of Christianity. 

Nor is this the sole circumstance that should, 
in mere justice, be considered in connexion with 
the rise of Christian monachism ; for before the 
mere facts can be understood, and certainly 
before the due measure of blame can be assigned 
to the parties concerned, it is indispensable that 
we divest ourselves of the prejudices, physical, 
moral, and intellectual, which belong to our 
austere climate, high-toned irritability, edacious 
appetites, and pampered constitutions; to our 
rigid style of thinking, and to our commercial 
habits of feeling. The Christian of England in 
the nineteenth century, and the Christian of 
Syria in the second, stand almost at the extremest 

* Different suppositions have been adopted for explaining the 
remarkable fact that no mention of the Essenes occurs in the New 
Testament, though the other Jewish sects are so often and so expli- 
citly named : the reasons given and adduced by Lardner, Cred. Part I. 
chap. 4, are satisfactory. It has been well observed that though our 
Lord does not explicitly name, or refute the Essenes, every one of 
their distinguishing principles is condemned in his arguments with 
the Pharisees. So far as these recluses were worthy of blame, they 
came virtually under the censures pronounced upon the practices and 
doctrine of those who, while they exaggerated the adjuncts of piety, 
forgot its substance* 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 203 

points of opposition in all the non-essentials of 
human nature; and the former must possess 
great pliability of imagination, and much of the 
philosophic temper, as well as the spirit of 
Christian charity, fairly and fully to appreciate 
the motives and conduct of the latter. 

That quiescent under-action of the mind to 
which we apply the term meditation, is a habit 
of thought that has been engrafted upon the 
European intellect in consequence of the recep- 
tion of Christianity. It is a product almost as 
proper to Asia as are the aromatics of Arabia, 
or the spices of India. The human mind does 
not every where expand in this manner, nor spon- 
taneously show these hues of heaven, nor emit 
this fragrance, except under the fervent suns and 
deep azure skies of tropical regions.* If the 
Hebrew and Christian Scriptures had been con- 
fined to the East, as in fact they have been 
almost confined to the West, the modern nations 
of Europe would perhaps have known as little of 



* Persia and India were the native soils of the contemplative 
philosophy ; as Greece was the source of the ratiocinative. The im- 
mense difference between the Asiatic and the European turn of 
mind — if the familiar phrase may be used, becomes conspicuous if 
some pages of either the Logic or Ethics of Aristotle are compared 
with what remains of the sentiments of the Gnostics. The influence 
of Christianity upon the moderns has been to temper the severity of 
the ratiocinative taste, with a taste for contemplation ; contemplation 
by so much the better than that of the oriental sages, as it takes its 
range in the heart, not in the imagination. 



204 



MOTIVES OF THE 






the compass of the meditative faculty, and of its 
delights, as did the Romans in the age of Sylla. 
The Greeks, being near to Asia geographically, 
near by similarity of climate, and near by the 
repeated importations of eastern philosophy, im- 
bibed something of the spirit of tranquil abstrac- 
tion : yet was it foreign to the genius of that 
restless and reasoning people. Pythagoras pro- 
bably, and certainly Plato, whose mind was almost 
as much Asiatic as Grecian, and whose writings 
are anomalies in Grecian literature, effected a 
partial amalgamation of the oriental with the 
western style of thought. Yet the foreign 
mixture would probably have disappeared if 
Christianity had not afterwards diffused eastern 
sentiments through the west. The combination 
was again cemented by the writings of those 
fathers who, after having studied Plato, and 
taught the rhetoric and philosophy of Greece, 
devoted their talents to the service of the 
Gospel.* 

But though the nations of the west have ac- 
quired a taste for this species of thought, it is 
the distinction of the Asiatic to meditate ; as to 
reason, and to act, is the glory of the European. 
To withdraw the soul from the senses, to divorce 









* Writers, such as Justin Martyr, Clemens Alex. Origen, Tatian, 
Athenagoras, Theophilus, &c. if not all professedly Platonists, 
brought not the less into the church a style of thinking and a 
mode of expression which they had learned from Plato or from 
his disciples. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 205 

the exterior from the inner man, to detain the 
spirit within its own circle, and to accustom it 
there to find its bliss ; to penetrate the depths 
and concealments of the heart, to repose during 
lengthened periods upon a single idea, without a 
wish for progression or change ; or to break 
away from the imperfections of the visible world, 
to climb the infinite, to hold converse with 
supernal beauty and excellence ; these are the 
prerogatives and pleasures of the intellectualist 
of Asia : and this is a happiness which he enjoys 
in a perfection altogether unknown to the busy, 
nervous, and frigid people of the north. If by 
favour of a peculiar temperament the oriental 
frees himself from the solicitations of voluptuous 
indulgence ; if the mental tastes are vivid enough 
to counteract the appetites ; then he finds a life 
of inert abstraction, of abstemiousness, and of 
solitude, not merely easy, but delicious. 

The lassitude which belongs to his constitution 
and climate more than suffices to reconcile the 
contemplatist to the want of those enjoyments 
which are to be obtained only by toil. A genial 
temperature, and a languid stomach, reduce the 
necessary charges of maintenance to an amount 
that must seem incredibly small to the well- 
housed, well-clothed, and high-fed people of 
northern Europe. The slenderest revenues are, 
therefore, enough to free him from all cares of 
the present life. He has only to renounce mar- 
ried life, its claims and its burdens, and then the 



206 MOTIVES OF THE 

skeleton machinery of his individual existence 
may be impelled in its daily round of sluggish 
movement, by air, and water, and a lettuce.* 

The Asiatic character is in no inconsiderable 
degree affected by the habits which result from 
the insufferable fervour of the sun at noon, and 
which compels a suspension of active employ- 
ments during the broad light of day. The period 
of venial indolence easily extends itself through 
all the hours of sultry heat, if necessity does not 
exact labour. And then the quiescence in which 
the day has been passed lends an elasticity of 
mind to the hours of night, when the effulgent 
magnificence of the heavens kindles the imagina- 
tion, and enhances meditation to ecstasy. How 
little, beneath the lowering, and chilly, and misty 

* Sulpitius affords abundant illustration of the topics adverted to 
in this section. Perhaps, within so small a compass, the principles 
and practices of the ancient monachism are no where else so fully 
brought into view, as in his Dialogues and Epistles. He may 
properly be quoted in the present instance. Postumianus, lately 
returned from the East, that is to say, from Egypt, Arabia, and 
Palestine, describes to his astonished brethren of a monastery in 
Gaul, the abstemiousness of the oriental monks, as well as their piety 
and marvellous exploits. (On his outward voyage Postumianus had 
gone ashore at Carthage to visit the spots dedicated to the saints, 
especially — ad sepulcrum Cypriani Martyris adorare.) His first 
specimen of a monkish dinner, in the oriental style, was the being 
invited to partake, with four others, of half a barley cake ; to which 
was added a handful of a certain sweet herb, altogether deemed to be 
— prandium locupletissimum. Sulpitius hence takes occasion to joke 
a brother, who was present, upon their own comparative appetites ; 
but he replies that it was extremely unkind to urge upon Gauls a 
manner of living proper only to angels. Hearty eating, says he, in a 
Greek, is gluttony ; but in a Gaul — nature. 






ANCIENT MONACHISM. 207 

skies of Britain, can we appreciate the power of 
these natural excitements of mental abstraction ! 

In an enumeration of the natural causes of 
the anchoretic life, the influence of scenery 
should by no means be overlooked. As the gay 
and multiform beauties of a broken surface, 
teeming with vegetation (when seconded by 
favouring circumstances) generate the soul of 
poetry ; so (with similar aids) the habit of musing 
in pensive vacuity of thought is cherished by 
the aspect of boundless wastes, and arid plains, 
or of enormous piles of naked mountain : and 
to the spirit that has turned with sickening or 
melancholy aversion from the haunts of man, 
such scenes are not less grateful or less fasci- 
nating than are the most delicious landscapes to 
the frolic eye of joyous youth. The wilderness 
of the Jordan, the stony tracts of Arabia, the 
precincts of Sinai, and the dead solitudes of 
sand, traversed, but not enlivened by the Nile, 
offered themselves, therefore, as the natural 
birth-places of monachism ; and skirting as they 
did the focus of religion, long continued (in- 
deed they have never wholly ceased) to invite 
numerous desertions from the ranks of com- 
mon life. 

A general and extreme corruption of man- 
ners, the wantonness, and folly, and enormity of 
licentious opulence, and the foul depravity which 



208 MOTIVES OF THE 

never fails to characterise the misery that follows 
the steps of luxury, operate powerfully in the 
way of reaction to exacerbate the motives, and 
to swell the excesses of the ascetic life, when once 
that mode of religion has been called into being. 
If the " powers of the world to come " are vividly 
felt by those who renounce sensual pleasure, the 
vigour of their self-denial, and the firmness of 
their resolution in adhering to their rule, will 
commonly bear proportion to the depth of the 
surrounding profligacy. Nothing could more 
effectually starve this species of enthusiasm in 
any country in which it appeared to be growing, 
than to elevate public morals. The exaggerated 
virtue of the monastery can hardly subsist in the 
near neighbourhood of the genuine virtue of 
domestic life ; nor will religious celibacy be in 
high esteem among a people who regard adul- 
tery, not less than murder and theft, as a crime, 
and with whom fornication is the cloaked vice 
only of a few. But in Syria and the neighbour- 
ing countries, at the time when the monastic life 
took its rise, the most shameless dissoluteness of 
manners prevailed, and prevailed to a degree that 
has rarely been exceeded ; and there is reason 
to believe that the early establishments of the 
Essenes were, in a great measure, peopled by 
those who, having imbibed the love of virtue 
from Moses and the prophets, fled, almost by 
necessity, from a world in which the practice 
of temperance and purity had become scarcely 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 209 

possible.* In after times,, the corruption of the 
great cities, in a similar manner, contributed to 
fill the monastic houses. 

A large indulgence, to say no more, is there- 
fore due to those ardent but feeble-minded per- 
sons, who, untaught by an experiment of the 
danger they incurred, fell into the specious error 
of supposing that a just solicitude for the pre- 
servation of personal virtue might excuse their 
withdrawment from the duties of common life ; 
especially as they were willing to purchase a 
discharge from its claims, by resigning then' 
share of its lawful delights. The Christian re- 
cluses fled from scenes in which, as they believed, 
purity could not breathe, to solitudes where 
(though no doubt they found themselves mis- 
taken) they supposed it would flourish spon- 
taneously. And, in truth, though it must be 
much more difficult to live virtuously under the 
provoking restraints of monastic vows, than amid 
the allowed enjoyments of domestic life, refined 
by Christianity, there may be room to question 



* The evidence of Josephus, (often cited) though there may some- 
times be traced in it a little oratorical exaggeration, is sufficient to 
prove the existence of a more than ordinary profligacy and ferocity 
among the Jews of his time. This people, destitute of the restraining 
and refining influence of philosophy and of elegant literature, which 
ameliorated the manners of the surrounding nations, had been de- 
prived, almost entirely, of all salutary restraints from the Divine Law 
by the corrupt evasions of Rabbinical exposition. At the same time, 
the keen disappointment of the national hope of universal dominion 
under the Messiah, exasperated their native pride to madness. 

P 



210 MOTIVES OF THE 

whether the balance might not really be in favour 
of the monastery, when the only alternative was 
an abode with extreme profligacy. 

So natural to young and ardent minds, under 
the first fervours of religious feeling, is the wish 
to run far from the sight and hearing of seductive 
pleasure, and so plausibly may such a design 
recommend itself to the simple and sincere, that, 
even in our own times, if by any means the 
general opinion of the Christian Church could be 
brought round to favour, or to allow the practice 
of monastic seclusion, and if, instead of being on 
all sides reprobated and ridiculed, it were per- 
mitted, encouraged and admired, the conjecture 
may be hazarded, that an instantaneous rush 
from all our religious communities would take 
place, and a host of the ardent, the imagina- 
tive, the melancholic ; not to mention the disap- 
pointed, the splenetic, and the fanatical, would 
abandon the domestic circle and the scenes 
of business, to people sanctuaries of celibacy 
and prayer in every sequestered valley of our 
island. 

Besides the ordinary miseries of frequent war, 
and of a foreign domination, which afflicted, more 
or less, the other provinces of the Roman empire, 
the existence among the Jews of a species of 
fanaticism perfectly unparalleled, allowed the 
Syrian Palestine to taste very imperfectly the 
benefits of temperate and vigorous rule. The 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 211 

intractable and malignant infatuation of that 
people so baffled the wisdom of the Roman 
government, and so disturbed its wonted equa- 
nimity, as to compel it to treat the unhappy- 
Judaea with unmeasured severity. Or if respite 
were enjoyed from military inflictions, the brutal 
violences of their own princes, or the atrocities 
perpetrated by demagogues, kept constantly 
alive the brand of public and private discord. 
During such times of insecurity and wretched- 
ness, it is usual for the passive portion of the 
community to sink into a state, either of reckless 
sensuality, or of pining despondency. But if, in 
this class, there are those who have received the 
consoling hope of a bright and peaceful immor- 
tality, it is only natural that, when hunted from 
all earthly comfort by violence and extortion, 
they should look wistfully at the grave, and long 
to rest where " the wicked cease from troubling." 
In this state of mind it cannot be deemed strange 
that, upon the first smile of opportunity, they 
should hasten away from scenes of blood and 
wrong, and anticipate the wished-for release from 
life, by hiding themselves in caverns and in 
deserts. 

A frightful solitude might well appear a para- 
dise, and a state of extreme privation be thought 
luxurious, to those who, in their retreat, felt at 
length safe from an encounter with man, who, 
when savage, is by far the most terrible of all 
savage animals. Such were the causes which had 

p2 



212 



MOTIVES OF THE 



driven multitudes of the well-disposed among the 
Jews into the wilderness. The severities of per- 
secution afterwards produced the same effect on 
the Christians ; and first on those of Syria and 
Egypt.* 

So long as he could wander unmolested over 
the pathless mountain tract, or exist in the arid 
desert, the timid follower of Christ not only 
avoided torture or violent death, but escaped 
what he dreaded more — the hazard of apostasy 
under extreme trial. Having once effected his 
retreat, and borne for a time the loss of friends 
and comforts, he soon acquired physical habits 
and intellectual tastes which rendered a life in 
the wilderness not only tolerable, but agreeable. 
To the fearful and inert, safety and rest are the 
prime ingredients of happiness, and, if absolute, 
go far towards constituting a heaven upon earth. 

In the utter solitude of the desert, or in the 
mitigated seclusion of the monastery, a large pro- 
portion, probably, of the recluses soon drooped 
into the inanity of trivial pietism : a few, perhaps, 
after the first excitement failed, bit their chain, 
from day to day, to the end of life ; or wrung a 
wretched solace from concealed vices. But those 
who, by vigour of mind supported better the 



* This effect is well known to have resulted from the Decian per- 
secution, and probably also from those that preceded it. No blame 
can be attributed to Christians who, in such times, fled from cities, 
and took refuge in solitudes ; unless, indeed, by so doing they aban- 
doned those whom they ought to have defended. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 213 

• 

preying of the soul upon itself, could do no other- 
wise than exchange the simple and affectionate 
piety with which perhaps they entered the wil- 
derness, for some form of visionary religion.* To 
maintain, unbent and unsullied, the rectitude 
of sound reason, and the propriety of sound 
feelings, in solitude, is an achievement which, it 
may confidently be affirmed, surpasses the powers 
of human nature. Good sense — never the pro- 
duct of a single mind, is the fruit of intercourse 
and collision. 

When the several circumstances above men- 
tioned are duly considered, they will remove 
from candid minds almost every sensation of 
asperity or contemptuous reprobation towards 
those who, in their day of defective knowledge, 
became the victims, or even the zealous sup- 
porters, of the prevalent enthusiasm. We have 
done then with the parties in these scenes of 
delusion and folly ; or at least with those of them 
who were sincere in their error. But when we 
turn to the system itself, and gain that license 
which charity herself may grant, while an ab- 
straction only is under contemplation, we must 
remember that this monkery, so innocent in its 



* The errors and extravagances generated by the monastic life did 
not ordinarily extend to the fundamental principles of Christianity. 
The monks were, for the most part, zealously attached to the doctrine 
of the Nicene Creed ; and the Church owes to many of them its thanks 
for the constancy with which they suffered in its defence. 



214 MOTIVES, &C. 

commencement, and so plausible in its progress, 
was the chief means of destroying the substance 
of Christianity, and ought to be deemed the 
principal cause of the gross darkness which hung 
over the Church during more than a thousand 
years. 



SECTION IX. 

THE SAME SUBJECT. — INGREDIENTS OF THE ANCIENT 
MONACHISM. 

Among the principal elements of the ancient 
Monachism, it is natural to name, first — 

Its contempt of the divine constitution of 
human nature, and the outrage it offered to 
the most salutary instincts. 

It may be hard to determine which is the 
greater folly and impiety — that of the Atheist, 
who can contemplate the admirable mechanism 
of the body, and not see there the proofs of divine 
wisdom and benevolence ; or that of the enthu- 
siast, who, seeing and acknowledging the hand 
of God in the mechanism of the human frame, yet 
dares to institute and to recommend modes of 
life which do violence to the manifest intentions 
of the Creator, as therein displayed ; and more- 
over, is not afraid to assert a warrant from 
Heaven for such outrages : as if the Creator 
and Governor of the world were not one and 
the same Being ; one in counsel and purpose : 
or as if the Author of Christianity were at 



216 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

variance with the Author of nature ! * Yet this 
preposterous error, this virtual Manichseism, has 
seemed to belong naturally to every attempt to 

* The dictates of good sense are often curiously intermingled in 
the writings of the Fathers with the defence of the absurd system 
they espoused. The incongruous mixture, has it not been of frequent 
occurrence in every age 1 Cyril of Jerusalem, in the fourth of his 
Catechetical Discourses, and in the section nepi acofxaros, with great 
vigour and propriety urges the consideration referred to above, while 
reprehending those, in his time, who affected to despise and mal-treat 
the body. " Is not the body," says he, " the excellent workmanship 
of God?" and he reminds the ascetic that it is the soul, not the body, 
that sins. He goes on, in a lively manner, to hold forth the mean of 
wisdom between opposite extremes; and while he much commends 
the monkish celibacy, nevertheless bestows upon matrimony its due 
praise. Et de continentia sermonem in primis audiant, ii qui vitam 
degunt solitariam, et virginum coetus, qui vitam in mundo angelicam 
instituunt. Magna vobis fratres corona reponita est, ne voluptate 
parva magnam dignitatem commutetis. Audite quid ait Apostolus — 
Ne quis scortator, aut impurus sit, ut Esau, qui uno edulio primatus 
suos vendidit. In evangelicis libris posthac describeris, quia tibi 
continentiam proposuisti, vide ne vicissim delearis, propter stuprum 
commissum. Neque vero si continentiam instituas ac praestes, ita 
sis superbia elatus, ut nuptiis allegatos insecteris. Honorabile est 
enim connubium, et thorus immaculatus, ut ait Apostolus. Et qui 
caste vivis, nonne natus es e conjugatis? Neque enim si possideas 
aurum, reprobes argentum. All this is very well, if we except the 
abuse of certain terms. But this abuse is in fact of the most danger- 
ous tendency. The Fathers by appropriating the words — continence, 
chastity, temperance, virtue, to the monastic life, robbed the Christian 
community of that standard of morals which belongs to all. Our 
Lord and his Apostles enjoined purity and continence, and temper- 
ance, and heavenly mindedness, upon Christians universally, married 
and unmarried ; engaged or not engaged, in the affairs of common 
life. But the monks shuddered to talk of purity and celibacy as if 
separable. What part then could the married claim in the practical 
portions of Scripture ? These holy precepts were the property of the 
Elect of Christ, that is, of the monks. Such are the consequences of 
extravagance in religion ! 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 217 

stretch and exaggerate the precepts of the Gospel 
beyond their obvious sense ; and indeed has sel- 
dom failed to shew itself in seasons of unusual 
religious excitement. 

Christianity is a religion neither for angels 
nor for ghosts ; but for man, as God made him. 
Nevertheless, in revealing an endless existence, 
and in establishing the paramount claims of the 
future world, it has placed all the interests of 
the present transient life under a comparison of 
immense disparity ; so that it is true — true to 
a demonstration, that a man ought to " hate his 
own life" if the love of it puts his welfare for 
immortality in jeopardy. Unquestionably, if by 
such means the well-being of the imperishable 
spirit could be secured and promoted, it would 
highly become a wise man to pass the residue of 
life, though it should hold out half a century, 
upon the summit of a column, exposed, like a 
bronze, to the alternations of day and night, of 
summer and winter ; * or to stand speechless and 
fixed, with the arms extended until the joints 



* The story of Symeon Stylites, told by Theodoret, has been often 
repeated. The well-attested exploits of the fakirs of India render this, 
and many similar accounts related by the same writer, by Gregory 
Nyssen, Sozomen, &c. perfectly credible in all but a few of the par- 
ticulars; and in these it is evident that the writers were imposed 
upon. The fasts professed to have been undergone by Symeon, 
by Anthony, and by others of the same class, most certainly surpass 
the powers of human nature, and must be held either to convict 
these monks and their accomplices of fraud, or their biographers of 
falsehood. 



218 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

should stiffen, and the tongue forget its office ; 
or to inhabit a tomb, or to hang suspended in 
the air by a hook in the side : these, and if there 
be any other practices still more horrifying to 
humanity, were doubtless wise, if, in the use of 
them, the soul might be advantaged ; for the soul 
is of infinitely greater value than the body. 

And much more might it be deemed lawful and 
commendable to refrain from matrimony, to with- 
draw from human society, to be clad in sack- 
cloth, to inhabit a cavern, if such comparatively 
moderate abstinences and mortifications were 
found to promote virtue, and so to ensure an en- 
hancement of the bliss that never ends. Conduct 
of this sort, however painful it may be, is per- 
fectly in harmony with the principle universally 
admitted to be reasonable, and in fact very com- 
monly reduced to practice, namely, to endure a 
smaller immediate loss or inconvenience, for the 
sake of securing a greater future good. 

The dictates of self-interest every day prompt 
sacrifices of this kind; and the maxims of natural 
virtue go much further, and often require a man 
to make the greatest deposit possible, even when 
the future advantage is doubtful, and when the 
sufferer is not the party who is to reap the ex- 
pected benefit. On this principle the soldier 
places himself at the cannon's mouth, because the 
safety or future welfare of his country can be 
purchased at no other price. On this principle a 
pious son denies the wishes of his heart, and 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 219 

remains unmarried,, that he may sustain a helpless 
parent. Christianity is not therefore at all pecu- 
liar in asserting the claims of higher, over lower 
reasons of conduct in peculiar circumstances ; 
or in demanding that, on special occasions, the 
enjoyments of life, and life itself, should be held 
cheap, or abandoned. 

Our Lord and his ministers explicitly enjoined 
such sacrifices, whenever the interests of the pre- 
sent and of the future life came in competition : 
and themselves set the example of the self-denial 
which they recommended. Nothing can be more 
clear than the rule of bodily sacrifice maintained 
and exemplified in the New Testament ; * and 
this rule is in perfect accordance with the dictates 
of good sense, and with the common practice 
of mankind. Fasting, celibacy, martyrdom, and 
such like contrarieties to the " will of the flesh," 
stand all on the same ground in the system of 
Christian morals ; they are ills which a wise and 
pious man will cheerfully endure whenever he is 
so placed that they cannot be avoided without 
damage or hazard to the soul. But when no 
such alternative is presented, then the voluntary 



* Matt. v. 29, and xviii. 8. The same principle, in its application 
to the conduct of Christians towards others, is explained and illus- 
trated by Paul with the utmost perspicuity, and in a style directly 
at variance with that of the monkish writers. See Rom. xiv. through- 
out, and 1 Cor. vii., and viii. 13. To relinquish the less for the greater, 
to prefer the soul to the body, the future to the present, is the sub- 
stance of all these apostolic precepts. 



220 



INGREDIENTS OF THE 



infliction becomes, as well in religious as in 
secular affairs, a folly, an impiety, and often a 
crime. To die without necessity, or to afflict 
oneself without reason, is not only an absurdity, 
but a sin. 

And how immensely is this folly and immo- 
rality aggravated when it is found that the vo- 
luntary suffering, instead of being simply useless, 
becomes, in its consequences, highly pernicious; 
when, by abundant evidence, it is proved to 
generate the very worst corruptions and per- 
versions to which human nature is liable ! Such, 
clearly, are the inflictions of the monastic life — 
the solitude, the abstinence, the celibacy, the 
poverty ! 

The rule of Christian martyrdom is precise 
and unequivocal,* and is such as absolutely to 
exclude every sort of spontaneous heroism. The 



* Matt. x. 23. The First Epistle of Peter holds forth the prin- 
ciple and temper of Christian submission under persecution with a 
dignity, calmness, pathos, good sense, and perfect freedom from fana- 
tical excitement, which, if no other document of our faith were 
extant, would fully carry the proof of the truth of Christianity. Let 
the genuineness of that epistle be granted (and it cannot be denied) 
and it will be impossible to reconcile it with any supposition but that 
of the reality of the facts to which it refers. It would be well if, in 
the argument with infidels, some single portion of the evidence, 
such, for example, as this epistle, were adhered to pertinaciously 
until the proof it contains were satisfactorily disposed of. There is 
not a column of the apostolic epistles, that would not amply suffice 
for the refutation of all the tomes of ancient and modern scepti- 
cism; were but the admitted principles of historical and critical 
evidence allowed to take fheir course in the argument between the 
Christian and the unbeliever. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 221 

motive also by which the Christian should be 
sustained is of a heart-affecting, not of an ex- 
citing kind ; and the style of the Apostles, when 
alluding to this subject, is singularly sedate and 
reserved ; nor is an idea introduced of a kind 
to inflame fanatical ambition. The reason of 
this caution is obvious ; for to have kindled the 
enthusiasm of martyrdom would have been to 
nullify the demonstration intended to be given 
to the world of the truth of Christianity. So 
long as martyrdom rested on the primitive basis 
(and it rested there, with few exceptions,* until 
miraculous attestations had nearly ceased to be 
afforded) it yielded conclusive proof of the 
reality of the facts affirmed by the confessors. 
That is to say, so long as the Christians suffered 

* Ignatius must be held to have set an example of unhappy conse- 
quence to the Church. His ardour for martyrdom, though unques- 
tionably connected with genuine and exalted piety, was altogether 
unwarranted by apostolic precept or example, and stands in the 
strongest contrast imaginable with the manner of Paul, when placed 
in similar circumstances, whose calm, manly, and spirited defence of 
his life, liberty, and civic immunities, on every occasion, imparts the 
highest possible argumentative value to his sufferings in the cause of 
Christianity. Let it be imagined that Ignatius had acquitted him- 
self in the same spirit ; had pleaded with Trajan for his life, on the 
grounds of universal justice, and Roman law ; had established his 
innocence of any crime known to the law ; and had then professed 
distinctly the reasons of his Christian profession ; and at the same 
time calmly declared his determination to die rather than deny his 
convictions. How precious a document would have been the narra- 
tive of such a martyrdom ! There can be no doubt that many such 
martyrdoms actually took place ; but they were less to the taste of the 
church historians of the third and fourth centuries than those that 
were made conspicuous by an ostentation of eagerness to die. 



222 



INGREDIENTS OF THE 



only when suffering could be avoided in no other 
way than by denying their profession, and so 
long as they endured tortures, and met death, in 
a spirit not raised above a calm courage ; or even 
displayed timidity or reluctance, such sufferings 
afforded direct demonstration of the sincerity of 
their belief; and they, having been eye-wit- 
nesses of supernatural interpositions, and being 
often the very agents of miraculous power, 
their sincere belief, their honesty, carried with 
it the proof of the facts so attested. 

But when, at a later time, martyrdom was 
courted in a spirit of false heroism, and came to 
be endured in a corresponding style of enthusi- 
astic excitement, it lost almost the whole of its 
value as a proof of the truth of Christianity. 
For it is well known to be within the compass of 
human nature to endure unmoved and exultingly 
the most extreme torments in fanatical adherence 
to a religious tenet ; and such sufferings evince 
nothing more than the firmness or the infatua- 
tion of the victim. On the contrary, when the 
confessor has fallen into the hands of persecuting 
power by no imprudence or temerity of his own, 
when he avails himself, with promptitude and 
calmness, of every legal and honourable means 
of self-defence or escape, when he pleads truth 
and right in arrest of judgment, and at last 
yields to the stroke because nothing could avert 
it but the forfeiture of conscience, then it is 
manifest that a deliberate conviction is the real 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 223 

motive of his conduct ; and then also, if he have 
a primary knowledge of the facts for affirming 
which he dies, his death, on the surest principles 
of evidence, must be accepted as containing in- 
contestable proof of those facts. 

The recluses were not the first to spoil the 
primitive practice of martyrdom ; but their prin- 
ciples greatly cherished the abuse when once it 
had been introduced; and still more did their 
conduct and their writings enhance the per- 
nicious superstitions which presently resulted 
from the foolish respect paid to the tombs and 
relics of confessors. These trivial and idolatrous 
reverences of human heroism can find no room 
of entrance until the great realities of Chris- 
tianity have been forgotten ; until the humbling 
and peace-giving doctrine of atonement has been 
lost sight of. The contrite heart, made glad by 
the assurance of pardon through the merit of 
Him, who alone has merit supererogatory, neither 
admits sentiments of vain glory for itself, nor 
is prone to yield excessive worship to the deeds 
of others.* 



* It deserves particular notice that the martyrs of the Reformation 
in England, France, Spain, and Italy, with very few exceptions, suf- 
fered in a spirit incomparably more sedate, and more nearly allied to 
that displayed and recommended by the Apostles, than did the 
Christians, generally, of the third century. The reason of the differ- 
ence is not obscure ; these modern confessors understood the capital 
doctrine of Christianity much more fully -and clearly than did those of 
the age of Origen. 



224 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

Celibacy, though it may seem to be a kind 
of self-devotion less extreme than voluntary 
martyrdom, was in fact a much greater and a 
much worse outrage upon human nature. This 
fundamental article of the monkish system had 
evidently two distinct motives : the first, and 
probably the originating cause of so extraordi- 
nary a practice was the impracticability of uniting 
the pleasures of seclusion and lazy meditation 
with the duties and burdens of domestic life. 
The alternative was unavoidable, either to re- 
nounce the happiness and the cares of husband 
and father, or the spiritual luxuries of supine 
contemplation. The one species of enjoyment 
offered itself precisely as the price that must be 
paid for obtaining the other.* 

The second motive of monkish celibacy, and 
which so gained ascendency over the first as to 
keep it almost wholly out of sight, sprung more 
immediately from the centre illusion of the 
system; and the real nature of that illusion 
stands forward in this instance in a distinct and 

* In the only places in the New Testament where celibacy is 
recommended, Matt. xix. 12, and 1 Cor. vii. 32, the reason is of 
this substantial and intelligible kind, namely, that in the case of 
individuals, placed in peculiar circumstances, a single life would be 
advantageous, inasmuch as it would give them better opportunity 
of serving the Lord without distraction. Precisely the same advice 
might sometimes with propriety be given to a soldier, or to a states- 
man : a high motive justifies a sacrifice of personal happiness. No 
where in the discourses of our Lord, or in the writings of the Apostles, 
is there to be discovered a trace of the monkish motive of celibacy — 
namely, the supposed sanctity of that state. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 225 

prehensible form. The very germ of that trans- 
muted piety, which, in the end, banished true 
religion from the Church, may readily be brought 
under inspection by tracing the natural history 
of the sentiment that attributes sanctity to 
single life. 

For reasons that are obvious and highly im- 
portant, a sentiment of pudicity, which can never 
be thrown aside without reducing man to the 
level — nay, below the level of the brutes, belongs 
to the primary link of the social system. But 
this feeling, necessary as it is to the purity and 
the dignity of social life, suggests, by a close 
and easy affinity of ideas, the supposition of guilt 
as belonging to indulgence, and then the cor- 
relative supposition of innocence, or of holiness, 
as belonging to continence. Nevertheless, feel- 
ings of this sort, when analysed, will be found to 
have their seat in the imagination exclusively, 
and only by accident to implicate the moral 
sense. They belong to that class of natural 
illusions, which, in the combination of the various 
and discordant ingredients of human nature, 
serve to amalgamate what would otherwise be 
utterly incompatible. Among all the natural 
illusions, or as they might be termed, the pseudo- 
moral sentiments, there is not one which so 
nearly resembles the genuine sense of right 
and wrong as this, or one that is so intimately 
blended with them. 

It is easy then to perceive the process by 



226 



INGREDIENTS OF THE 



which infirm minds passed into the error of 
attributing sanctity to celibacy. But the law of 
Christian purity knows of no such confusion of 
ideas. The very same authority which forbids 
adultery, enjoins marriage : and so long as mo- 
rality is understood to consist in obedience to the 
declared will of God, it can never be imagined 
that a man is defiled by living in matrimony, any 
more than by " eating with unwashen hands." 
But when once religion has passed into the 
imagination, and when the sentiments which 
have their seat in that faculty have become pre- 
dominant, so as to crush or enfeeble those that 
belong to conscience, then is it inevitable that the 
true purity which consists in " keeping the com- 
mandments," should be supplanted by that arti- 
ficial holiness which is a mere refinement upon 
natural instincts. Under the influence of false 
notions of this sort, nothing seems so saintly as 
for a man to shrink horriflcally from the touch 
of woman ; nothing scarcely so spiritually degrad- 
ing as to be a husband and a father.* Impious 



* " Grande est et immortale, poene ultra naturam corpoream, super- 
are luxuriam, et concupiscentise spasmeam adolescentiae facibus ac- 
censam animi virtute restringuere, et spiritali conatu vim genuinse 
oblectationis excludere, vivereque contra humani generis legem, despi- 
cere solatia conjugii, dulcedinem contemnere liberorum, quaecumque 
esse praesentis vitae commoda possint, pro nibilo spe futurorum beati- 
tudinis computare." The Epistle of Sulpitius, de Firginitate, in which 
this passage occurs, contains, it should be confessed, much more good 
sense and good morality, in the latter part of it, than one would ex- 
pect to find in conjunction with absurdities such as that above quoted. 
The annotator on the passage well says, that the Ascetics avoided 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 22 7 

and mad enthusiasm ; and not only irreligious 
and absurd, but pestilent also ; for this same 
monkish doctrine of the merit of virginity stands 
convicted, on abundant evidence, of having trans- 
planted the worst vices of polytheistic Greece 
into the very sanctuaries of religion ; and so, 
of infecting the nations of modern Europe with 
crimes which, had they not been kept alive in 
monasteries, Christianity would long ago have 
banished from the earth. 

How little did the pious men, who, in the third 
century, extolled the merit of mortification, and 
petty torture, and celibacy, think of the hideous 
corruptions in which these practices were to ter- 
minate ! A sagacity more than human was 
needed to foresee the end from the beginning. 
But with the experience of past ages before 
us, we may well learn to distrust all specious 
attempts to exaggerate morality, or to attach 
ideas of blame to things innocent or indifferent. 
This over-doing of virtue never fails to divert 
the mind from what is substantially good, and 
is moreover the almost invariable symptom of a 
transmuted or fictitious pietism. 

II. The ancient monkery was a system of the 

the pleasures of domestic life, not because they were sweets, but because 
conjoined with great cares, which those escaped who lived in celibacy. 
Nor is it to be denied that married life is obnoxious to great and heavy 
inconveniences : nevertheless, if under those difficulties we live holily 
and religiously, our future recompense will surely not be less than as 
if, to be free from them, we had embraced a single life. 

q2 



228 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

most deliberate selfishness. That solicitude for 
the preservation of individual interests which 
forms the basis of the human constitution, is so 
broken up and counteracted by the claims and 
pleasures of domestic life, that though the prin- 
ciple remains, its manifestations are suppressed, 
and its predominance effectually prevented, ex- 
cept in some few tempers peculiarly unsocial. 
But the anchoret is a selfist by his very profes- 
sion ; and like the sensualist, though his taste is 
of another kind, he pursues his personal gratifica- 
tions, reckless of the welfare of others. His own 
advantage or delight, or, to use his favourite 
phrase — the good of his soul, is the sovereign 
object of his cares. His meditations, even if they 
embrace the compass of heaven, come round, ever 
and again, to find their ultimate issue in his own 
bosom : but can that be true wisdom which just 
ends at the point whence it started ? True wis- 
dom is a progressive principle. In abjuring the 
use of the active faculties, in reducing himself, by 
the spell of vows, to a condition of physical and 
moral annihilation, the insulated being says to his 
fellows, concerning whatever might otherwise have 
been converted to their benefit — " it is corban ;" 
thus making void the law of love to our neigh- 
bour, by a pretended intensity of love to God. 

That so monstrous an immorality should have 
dared to call itself by the name of sanctity, and 
should have done so too in front of Christianity, is 
indeed amazing, and could never have happened 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 229 

if Christianity had not first been shorn of its 
life-giving warmth, as the sun is deprived of its 
power of heat when we ascend into the rarity of 
upper space. The tendency of a taste for ima- 
ginative indulgences to petrify the heart has been 
already adverted to ; and it receives a signal 
illustration in the monkish life, especially in its 
more perfect form of absolute separation from the 
society of man. The anchoret was a disjoined 
particle, frozen deep into the mass of his own 
selfishness, and there imbedded below the touch 
of every human sympathy. This sort of medi- 
tative insulation is the ultimate and natural issue 
of all enthusiastic piety; and may be met with 
even in our own times among those who have 
no inclination to run away from the comforts of 
common life. 

III. Spiritual pride, the most repulsive of the 
religious vices, was both a main cause and a 
principal effect of the ancient monachism. 

The particular manner in which this odious 
pride sprung up in the monastery deserves 
especial attention. That sort of plain and prac- 
tical religion which adapts itself to the circum- 
stances of common life — the religion taught by 
the Apostles, a religion of love, sobriety, tem- 
perance, justice, fit for the use of master and 
servant, of husband and wife, of parent and 
child, by no means satisfied the wishes of those 
who sought in Christianity a delicious dream of 



230 



INGREDIENTS OF THE 



unearthly excitements. It was therefore indis- 
pensable to imagine a new style of religion ; and 
hence arose the doctrine, so warmly and in- 
cessantly advanced by the early favourers of 
monkery, that our Lord and his Apostles taught 
a two-fold piety, and recognized an upper and 
an under class in the church, and sanctioned the 
division of the Christian body into what might be 
termed a Plebeian, and a Patrician order.* 

In accordance with this arrogant pretension 
it was believed, that while the Christian com- 
monalty might be left to wallow in the affairs of 
common life — in business, matrimony, and such 
like impurities, the elect of Christ stood on a 
platform, high-lifted above the grossness of 
secular engagements and earthly passions, and 
were, in their Lord's esteem, immensely more 
holy, and higher in rank, as candidates for the 
honours of the future life, than the mass of the 



* This doctrine appears more or less distinctly in every one of the 
fathers who at all favours the monastic life. It may seem to bear 
analogy to the principle of the Grecian philosophers who had their 
common maxims for the vulgar, and their hidden instructions for 
the few. But the resemblance is more apparent than real : the dis- 
tinction arose among the Christians from altogether another source. 
The Church, that is to say the collective body of true believers, is 
called in the New Testament the spouse of Christ; but the monks 
perverted the figure by using it distinctively, by calling individual 
Christians " the brides of Christ," and by appropriating the honour 
to those who had taken the vow of celibacy. The most absurd and 
impious abuses of language presently followed from this error, and 
such as it were even blasphemous to repeat. Yet some of the 
greatest writers of the times are charmed with these irreligious 
conceits. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 231 

faithful. When this supposition became gene- 
rally adopted and assented to, out of the mo- 
nastery as well as within it, the first and natural 
consequence was a great depreciation of the 
standard of morals among the people. If there 
were admitted to be two rates or degrees of 
virtue, there were, of course, two laws or rules 
of life : whatever therefore in the Scriptures 
seemed to be strict, or pure, or elevated, was 
assigned to the upper code ; while the lower 
took to itself only what wore an aspect of laxity 
and indulgence. Even an attempt on the part of 
secular Christians to make advances in holiness 
might be condemned as a species of presumption, 
or as an invasion of the proprieties of the saintly 
order. Heavenly mindedness and purity of heart 
were chartered to the regulars — the monopolists 
of perfect grace. Alas, that the privileged 
should have availed themselves so moderately of 
their rights ! 

A second, and not less natural consequence of 
the same principle, was the formation among the 
monks, either of an insufferable arrogance and 
self-complacency ; or of a villanous hypocrisy — 
an hypocrisy which qualified those who sustained 
it to become the agents of every detestable 
knavery that might promote the ambitious ma- 
chinations, or screen the debaucheries of the 
order. 

If a reputation for superior sanctity be ever 
safe and serviceable to a Christian, it must be 



232 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

when his conduct and temper, even to the inmost 
privacies of domestic life, are open to indifferent 
observers ; not to the cringing servitors of a 
religious establishment, or to the holy man's 
hangers-on, and accomplices, but to the children 
and the servants of a family; the moral vision 
of a child is especially quick and clear. He who 
thus lives under the eye of witnesses not to be 
deceived, and not to be bribed, may actually 
demean himself the better for being reputed 
eminently good. Not so the man who inhabits a 
den or a cell ; who is seen by the world only 
through a loop-hole ; or who shows himself to an 
admiring crowd when, and where, and in what 
manner he pleases. To such a one, the praise 
of sanctity will most often be found inscribed, on 
its other side, with a license to crime. Under 
circumstances so blasting to the simple honesty 
and unaffected humility of true piety, almost the 
best that charity can imagine is, that the hooded 
saint deludes himself more than he deceives 
others. 

Such are the natural and almost invariable 
consequences — in monasteries, or out of them, of 
ambitious attempts to render religion a some- 
thing too elevated and too pure to be brought 
into contact with the affairs of common life. The 
endeavour generates a pretension that can never 
be filled out by truth and reality : the deficiency 
must be made up by delusion and deception, the 
one begetting arrogance, the other knavery. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 233 

IV. Greediness of the supernatural formed an 
essential characteristic of the ancient monachism. 

The cares and toils and necessities, the refresh- 
ments and delights of common life, are the great 
teachers of common sense ; nor can there be any 
effective school of sober reason where these are 
excluded. Whoever, either by elevation of rank, 
or peculiarity of habits, lives far removed from 
this kind of tuition, rarely makes much profi- 
ciency in that excellent quality of the intellect. A 
man who has little or nothing to do with other 
men on terms of open and free equality, needs 
the native sense of five, to behave himself only 
with a fair average of propriety. Absolute soli- 
tude (and seclusion in its degree) necessitates a 
lapse into some species of absurdity more or less 
nearly allied to insanity ; and religious solitude 
naturally strays into the regions of vision and 
miracle.* 



* " Habitant plerique in eremo sine ullis tabernaculis quos Ana- 
choretas vocant. Vivunt herbarum radicibus : nullo unquam certo 
loco consistunt, ne ab hominibus frequententur : quas nox coegerit 

sedes habent Inter hujus (Sina) recessus Anachoreta esse aliquis 

ferebatur quern diu multumque quassitum videre non potui, qui fere 
jam ante quinquaginta annos a conversatione humana remotus, nullo 
vestis usu, setis corporis sui tectus, nuditatem suam divino munere 
vestiebat. Hie quoties eum religiosi viri adire voluerunt, cursu avia 
petens, congressus vitabat humanos. Uni tantummodo ferebatur se 
ante quinquennium prsebuisse, qui credo potenti fide id obtinere pro- 
meruit : cui inter multa conloquia percunctanti, cur homines tantopere 
vitaret, respondisse perhibetur, Eum qui ab hominibus frequentaretur 
non posse ab angelis frequentari." — Sidp. Sev. Dialog. I. 



234 



INGREDIENTS OF THE 



The monastery was at once the place where 
the illusions of distempered brains were the most 
likely to abound, and where the frauds which 
naturally follow in the train of such illusions 
were the most conveniently hatched and executed. 
Those dungeons of dimness, of silence, of absolute 
obedience ; those scenes of nocturnal ceremony ; 
those labyrinths of subterrene communication ; 
those nurseries of craft and credulity, seemed as 
if constructed for the very purpose of fabricating 
miracles : and, in fact, if all the narratives of 
supernatural occurrences that are found upon 
the pages of the ancient church-writers were 
numbered, incomparably the larger proportion 
would appear to have been immediately con- 
nected with the religious houses. The wonder 
which goes to swell the vaunted achievements of 
the sainted abbot or brother, was effected, we are 
assured, in the cell, in the chapel or church, 
in the convent-garden, in the depths of the 
overhanging forest, or upon the solitude of the 
neighbouring shore. Of all such miracles it is 
enough to say that, whether genuine or not, they 
can claim no respect from posterity, seeing that 
they stand not within the circle of credible testi- 
mony. History — lover of simplicity, scorns to 
place them on her page in any other form than 
as evidences of the credulitv, if not of the dis- 
honesty of the times !* 

* Many laborious and voluminous discussions might have been 
saved, if the simple and very reasonable rule had been adopted of 






ANCIENT MONACHISM. 235 

The miraculous powers existing in the Church 
after the apostolic age, rest under a cloud that 
is not now to be thoroughly dispelled. But 
with safety the following propositions may be 
affirmed; first, That the Christian doctrine 
received some miraculous attestations after the 
death of the Apostles ; secondly, That so early 
as the close of the fourth century, fraudulent or 
deceptive pretensions to miraculous power were 
very frequently advanced ; and, lastly, That at 
that period, and subsequently, there are in- 
stances, not a few, of a certain sort of sincerity 
and fervour in religion, conjoined with very ex- 
ceptionable attempts to acquire a thaumaturgal 
reputation.* These deplorable cases deserve 

waiving investigation into the credibility of any narrative of super- 
natural or pretended supernatural events, said to have taken place 
upon consecrated ground, or under sacred roofs. Fanes, caves, groves, 
churches, convents, cells, are places in which the lover of history will 
make but a transient stay : he may easily find better employment 
than in sifting the evidence on which rest such stories as that of the 
roof-descended oil, used at the baptism of Clovis ; or that of the relics 
discovered by Ambrose for the confutation of royal error (August. 
Conf. IX. 7, and the bishop's own account of the affair, which the 
reader may find in the Benedictine edition of his works, Vol. II. p. 
874,) and a thousand others of like nature. Those who, reading 
church history cursorily, are perplexed by the frequency of suspicious 
miracle, are probably not aware, generally, how very large a pro- 
portion of all such annoying relations may be readily and reason- 
ably disposed of by adhering to the rule above stated. Another 
rule, presently to be mentioned, and not less well founded, dis- 
charges again a large portion of what may remain unexplained 
after application of the first. 

* Gregory of Neocsesarea, commonly called Thaumaturgus, ought 
not to be involved in an accusation of this kind, for two reasons ; 
first, because the incidental evidence which altests his having in truth 






236 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

particular attention, especially as they show what 
are the natural fruits of fictitious pietism. 

If we choose to read the Church history of the 
fourth and fifth centuries in the spirit of frigid 
and purblind scepticism, all the toil and perplexity 
that belong to the exercise of cautious and can- 
did discrimination will be at once saved; and we 
shall, in every instance where supernatural inter- 
position is alleged, whatever may be the quality 
of the evidence, or the character of the facts, 
take up that vulgar and obvious explanation 
which is offered, by attributing a greedy credu- 
lity to the laity of those times, and a villanous 
and shameless knavery to the clergy. But this 
short and clumsy method, how satisfactory soever 
it may be to indolence, or how gratifying soever 
to malignity, can never approve itself to those 
who are at once well informed of facts, and ac- 
customed to analyze evidence with precision. 
The compass of human nature includes many 
motives, deep, and intricate, of which besotted 
infidelity never dreams, and which in its unob- 
servant arrogance it can never comprehend. 

Long before the time when ecclesiastical nar- 
ratives of supernatural occurrences assume a 

possessed miraculous powers is strong ; and, secondly, because the only 
complete narrative that has come down to us of his miracles, that 
composed by Gregory Nyssen — is scarcely worthy of serious regard, 
as an historical document, not only on account of its suspicious cha- 
racter, but because it was written a century after the death of the 
great and good man, whom it labours to celebrate and really vilifies. 
See the Life of Gregory Thaumat. in the Works of Greg. Nys. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 237 

character decidedly suspicious, or manifestly 
faithless, the great facts of Christianity had, with 
a large class of persons, especially with the re- 
cluses, become the objects of day-dream contem- 
plation,' and formed rather the furniture of a 
theatre of celestial machinery, than the exciting 
causes of simple faith, and hope, and joy. The 
divine glories, the brightness of the future life, 
the history and advocacy of the Mediator, the 
agency of angels, and of devils, were little else, to 
many, than the incentives of intellectual intoxica- 
tion. When once this misuse of religious ideas 
had gained possession of the mind, it brought 
with it an irresistible prurience, asking for the 
marvellous, just as voluptuousness asks for the 
aliments of pleasure. This demand will be 
peculiarly importunate among those who have 
to uphold their faith in the front of a gainsaying 
world ; and who would much rather confound 
the scoffer by a new miracle, than convince him 
by an argumentative appeal to an old one. 

The first step towards the pseudo-miraculous 
is taken without doing any violence to conscience, 
and little even to good sense ; provided that 
opinions of a favouring kind are generally pre- 
valent. Good, and even judicious men, might be 
so under the influence of the imagination as to 
have their sleep hurried with visions, and their 
waking meditations quickened by unearthly 
voices ; and might complacently report such 
celestial favours to greedy hearers, without a 



238 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

particle of dishonest consciousness.* Thus the 
taste for things extraordinary was at once che- 
rished and powerfully sanctioned by the example 
of men eminently wise and holy. Then with an 
inferior class of men the progression from illusions, 
real and complete, to such as were in part aided 
by a little spontaneity and contrivance, and which, 
though somewhat unsatisfactory to the narrator, 
were devoured without scruple by the hearer, 
could not be difficult. The temptation to pro- 
duce a commodity so much in demand was 
strong ; often too strong for those whose moral 
sense had been debilitated by an habitual inebriety 
of the imagination. Another step towards reli- 
gious fraud was more easily taken than avoided, 

* The two signal instances may be mentioned of Cyprian and 
Augustine, men whose thorough honesty and sincerity will not be 
questioned by any one who himself possesses the sympathies of virtue 
and integrity. They were both carried by the spirit of their times 
almost to the last stage of credulity and self-delusion ; but the latter 
much farther than the former. While speaking of Cyprian, a passage 
may be quoted which confirms more than one of the statements 
advanced in the preceding pages. The expressions are extremely 
significant ; they occur in the exordium of the tract, De Disciplina et 
Habitu Virginum. Nunc nobis ad virgines sermo est, quarum quo 
sublimior gloria est, major et cura est. Hse sunt ecclesiastici 
germinis flores, decus atque ornamentum gratia? spiritalis, laeta 
indoles, laudis et honoris opus integrum, atque incorruptum, Dei 
imago, respondens ad sanctimoniam Domini, illustrior portio gregis 
Christi. Gaudet per illas, atque in illis largiter floret Ecclesise matris 
gloriosa fecunditas : quantoque plus copiosa virginitas numero suo 
addit, tanto plus gaudium matris augescit. In this eulogy there is 
not merely the commendation of single life, but very distinctly the 
doctrine of a two-fold morality, and the recognition of a patrician 
class in the church. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 239 

when it was eagerly looked for by open-mouthed 
credulity, when the Church might cheaply and 
securely be glorified, and Gentilism triumphantly 
confuted. The plain ground of Christian in- 
tegrity having once been abandoned, the shocks 
of a downward progress towards the most repre- 
hensible extreme of deception were not likely to 
awaken remorse. 

Practices, therefore, which, viewed in their 
naked merits, must excite the detestation of every 
Christian mind, might insensibly gain ground 
among those who were far from deserving the 
designation of thorough knaves. They were 
fervent and laborious in their zeal to pro- 
pagate Christianity ; they believed it cordially, 
and themselves hoped for eternal life in their 
faith ; and in the strength of this hope were 
ready "to give their bodies to be burned." They 
prayed, they watched, they fasted, and crucified 
the flesh, and did every thing which an enthu- 
siastical intensity of feeling could prompt ; and 
this feeling prompted them to promote the gospel, 
as well by juggling as by preaching. 

But had not these religious forgers read the 
unbending morality of the gospel ? Or, reading 
it, was it possible that they could think the 
sacrifice of honesty an acceptable offering to the 
God of truth ? The difficulty can be solved only 
by calculating duly the influence of imaginative 
pietism in paralysing the conscience ; and if the 
facts of the case still seem hard to comprehend, 






240 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

it will be necessary, for illustration, to recur 
to instances that may be furnished, alas ! by 
most Christian communities in our own times. 
Is it impossible to find individuals fervent, and 
in a certain sense sincere, in their devotions, 
zealous and liberal in their endeavours to diffuse 
Christianity, and, perhaps, in many respects 
amiable, who, nevertheless, admit into their ha- 
bitual course of conduct very gross contrarieties 
to the plainest rules of Christian morality ? 
When instances of this sort are under discussion, 
it is alike unsatisfactory to affirm of the parties 
in question, that they are, in the common sense 
of the term, hypocrites; or to grant that their 
piety is genuine, but defective. The first suppo- 
sition, though it may cut the difficulty, does not 
by any means nicely accord with the facts : and 
the second puts contempt upon the most explicit 
and solemn declarations of our Lord and his 
ministers, whose style of enforcing the divine 
law will never allow those who are flagrantly 
vicious, those who are " workers of iniquity," to 
be called ' imperfect Christians.' 

Our alternative presents itself for the solution 
of the pressing difficulty. The religion of these 
delinquent professors is sincere in its kind, and 
perhaps fervent ; but not less fictitious than 
sincere. Or rather the religion they profess is 
not Christianity, but an image of it. Whatever 
there is in the Gospel that may stimulate emotion 
without breaking up the conscience, has been 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 241 

admitted and felt ; but the heart has not been 
made " alive towards God." Repentance has 
had no force, the desire of pardon no intensity. 
Certain vices may be shunned and reprobated, 
and others as freely indulged ; for nothing is 
really inconsistent with the dreams of religious 
delusion — except the waking energy of true 
virtue. And thus it was with many in the 
ancient Church ; the stupendous objects of the 
unseen world had kindled the imagination ; and 
in harmony with this state of mind, a super- 
natural heroism and unnatural style of virtue 
were admired and practised, because they fed 
the flames of a fictitious happiness which com- 
pensated for the renunciation of the pleasures of 
sense. In this spirit martyrdom was courted, 
and deserts were peopled until they ceased to be 
solitudes ; and in this spirit also miracles were 
affirmed, or fabricated, not so often by knaves, 
as by visionaries. 

The subject of the suspicious pretensions to 
miraculous power advanced by many of the 
ancient Christian writers should not be dismissed 
without remarking, that it is one thing to com- 
pose a gaudy narrative (de virtutibus) of the 
wonder-working powers of a saint, gone to his 
rest in the preceding century ; and another to be 
the actor in scenes of religious juggling. If this 
distinction be duly considered, a very large mass 
of perplexing matter will at once be discharged 
from the page of ecclesiastical history, and that 

R 



242 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

without doing the smallest violence either to 
charity, or to the laws of evidence. Some foolish 
presbyter or busy monk, gifted with a talent of 
description, has collected the church-tales, cur- 
rent in his time, concerning a renowned father. 
The turgid biography, applauded in the monas- 
tery where it was produced, slipped away silently 
to the faithful of distant establishments, and 
without having ever undergone that ordeal of 
real and local publicity, which authenticates com- 
mon history, was suffused, as it were, beneath 
the surface of notoriety, through Christendom, 
and so has come down to modern times, to load 
the memory of some good man with unmerited 
disgrace.* 



* One important rule of procedure in relation to the ancient nar- 
ratives of miracles has been just referred to, note to page 234. A 
second is to quash all serious consideration of those which exist only 
in biographies composed in a turgid style of laudatory exaggeration, 
and not published, or not fairly and fully published, till long after the 
deaths of the operator, and of the witnesses. An instance precisely 
in point has already been mentioned, namely, the life of Gregory of 
Neocaesarea, by Gregory Nyssen : another of like kind has also here 
been frequently quoted, the life of St. Martin, by Sulpitius Severus : 
the life of Cyprian, by his Deacon Pontius, might be included ; and 
perhaps that of St. Anthony, by Athanasius. In passing, it may 
be observed that a perusal of the last-mentioned tract, which fills 
only some fifty pages, would convey a more exact and vivid idea 
of the state and style of religion in the fourth century, than is to 
be obtained by reading volumes of modern compilations of Church 
history. At once the piety and the strong sense of the writer, 
and the extraordinary character of the narrative, give it a peculiar 
claim to attention. Let the intelligent reader of this curious docu- 
ment take the occasion to estimate the value and amount of the 
information that is to be received from modern writers — Mosheim 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 243 

V. The practice of mystifying the Scriptures 
must be named as an especial characteristic of 
monkish religion. 

This practice was, in the first place, the natural 
fruit of a life like that of the recluses ; for the 
Bible is a directory of common life, the heavenly 
enchiridion of those who are beset with the cares, 
labours, sorrows, and temptations, of the world. 
To the anchoret it presents almost a blank page : 
a style of existence so unnatural as that which 
he has chosen, it does not recognize ; his imagi- 
nary troubles, his frivolous duties, his visionary 
temptations, his self-inflicted sufferings, and his 
real difficulty of maintaining virtue under the 
galling friction of a presumptuous vow, are all 
absolutely unknown to the Scriptures, which 

and Milner, for example, of whom the first gives the mere husk of 
history, and the other nothing but some separated particles of pure 
farina. But can we in either of these methods obtain the solid and 
safe instruction which a true knowledge of human character and con- 
duct should convey? It may be very edifying to read page after page 
of picked sentiments of piety j but do these culled portions, which 
actually belie the mass whence they are taken, communicate what 
an intelligent reader of history looks for — namely, a real picture 
and image of mankind in past ages ? Certainly not. If nothing be 
wanted but pleasing expressions of Christian feeling, there can be 
no need to make a painful search for them in the bulky tomes of 
the Greek and Latin fathers. Nevertheless, with all its very great 
defects, Milner's Church History is incomparably the best that has 
ever been compiled. A modern reader, led astray at every step 
by the malignant falsifications of Gibbon, and very partially in- 
formed of facts by Church historians, has no means of correctly 
estimating the state of Christianity in remote times ; or none but 
that of examining for himself the literary remains of ecclesiastical 
antiquity. 

R 2 






244 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

therefore, to the recluse, are not profitable for 
reproof, or correction, or for instruction in 
the false righteousness which he labours to 
establish. 

To adapt the Bible to the cell, it must, of ne- 
cessity, be allegorized. Then indeed it is made 
inexhaustibly rich in the materials of spiritual 
amusement. It was thus that the Jewish doctors, 
the authors of the Talmudical writings, found the 
means of diverting the heaviness of their leisure : 
and it was thus, though in a different style, that 
the Essenes of the wilderness of the Jordan whiled 
away the hours of their solitude : and thus, yet 
again after another pattern, that the Christian 
monks, especially those of Palestine* and Egypt, 
transmuted the words of truth and soberness into 
a tangled wreath of flimsy fable. 

The doctrine of a mystical sense has invariably 
been espoused by every successive body of idle 
religionists ; that is to say, by all who, spurning 
or forgetting the authority which the Scriptures 
assert over the life and conscience, convert them 
into the materials of a delicious dream. The 
mask of allegory imposed on the Bible serves 
first as a source of entertainment, and then as a 
shelter against the plain meaning of all those 



* Origen, as every one knows, led the way in the Christian Church 
in this mode of interpretation. It is also well known that the monks, 
especially those of Alexandria, warmly espoused the cause of this 
ingenious writer against the bishops and clergy, who with equal 
warmth condemned his works as heretical. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 245 

passages which directly condemn the will-wor- 
ship, the fooleries, and the extravagances to which 
persons of this temper are ever addicted. So did 
the Rabbis make void the law of God ; so did the 
monks ; so have all classes of modern mystics ; 
so do modern Antinomians : all have asserted a 
double, a treble, or a quadruple sense ; a mys- 
tery couched beneath every narrative, and every 
exhortation, or even hidden in single words : or 
they have descried a profound doctrine packed in 
the bend of a Samech or a Koph. Not one of 
the absurdities of the ancient monkery has been 
so long-lived as this : nor is there to be found a 
more certain symptom of the existence of fatal 
illusion in matters of religion. 

VI. The monkish system recommended itself 
by astonishing feats of devotedness, and by great 
proficiency in the practices of artificial and spon- 
taneous virtue. 

The motives of enthusiasm are so much more 
congruous with the unreformed impulses of hu- 
man nature than are the principles of genuine 
piety, that the former have usually far surpassed 
the latter in the difficult and mortifying achieve- 
ments of self-denial. In proportion as a system 
of fanaticism is remote from truth, its stimulating 
force is found to be great. Thus the fakirs of 
India have carried the feats of voluntary torture 
far beyond any other order of religionists. Mo- 
hammedans, generally, are more zealous, devout, 



246 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

and fervent, than Christians. Romanists sur- 
pass Protestants in the solemnity, intensity, and 
scrupulosity of their devotional exercises. In 
conformity with this well-known principle the 
monastic orders have had to boast, in all ages, of 
some prodigious instances of mortification, or of 
charitable heroism. And the boast might be 
allowed to win more praise than can be granted 
to it, if there were not manifest, invariably, in 
these egregious exploits, a ferment of sinister 
feelings, quite incompatible with the simplicity 
and purity of Christian virtue. 

For example, let a comparison be drawn 
between a daughter who, in the deep seclusion of 
private life, and without a spectator to applaud 
her virtue, cheerfully devotes her prime of years 
to the service of an afflicted parent; and the 
nun, who inveigles beggars daily to the convent, 
where she absolves them, against their will, from 
their filth, dresses their ulcers, and cleanses their 
tatters. Assuredly the part she performs is more 
seemingly difficult, and far more revolting than 
that of the pious daughter; yet it is in fact 
more easy; for the inflated ' sister of charity'* 
is sustained and impelled by notions of heroism, 
and of celestial excellence, and by a present 
recompense of fame among her sisterhood, of all 
which the other does not dream, who, if she 
possessed not the substantial motives of true 

* The charitable offices of the nuns in the hospitals of France 
ought always to be mentioned with respect and admiration. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 247 

goodness, could never in this manner win the 
blessing of heaven. 

Self-inflicted penances, wasteful abstinences, 
fruitless labours, sanctimonious humiliations, and 
all such like spontaneities, may fairly be classed 
with those painful and perilous sports, in pursuing 
which it often happens that a greater amount of 
suffering is endured, and of danger incurred, than 
ordinarily belongs to the services and duties of 
real life. But these freaks of the monastery, or 
these toils of the field, deserve little praise, 
seeing that they meet their immediate reward in 
the gratification of a peculiar taste. In both in- 
stances the adult child pleases himself in his own 
way, and must be deemed to do much if he avoids 
trampling down the rights of his neighbour. 

Fictitious virtue, if formed on the model of the 
Koran, naturally assumes the style of martial 
arrogance, of fanatical zeal, and of bluff devotion. 
But if it be the Gospels that furnish the pattern, 
then an opposite phase of sanctity is shown. 
Abject lowliness, and voluntary poverty (which 
is no poverty at all) and ingenious austerities, 
and romantic exploits of charity, and other similar 
misinterpretations of the spirit and letter of New 
Testament morality, are combined to form a 
tattered and tawdry effigy of the humility, purity, 
and beneficence of Christian holiness. But compel 
the imitator to relinquish all that is heroic, and 
picturesque, and poetical in his style of behaviour ; 
oblige him to lay aside whatever makes the vulgar 



248 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

gape at his sanctity ; let him uncowl his ears, and 
cover his naked feet : ask him to acquit himself 
patiently, faithfully, christianly, amid the non- 
illustrious and difficult duties of common life, and 
he will find himself destitute of motive and of zest 
for his daily task. Temperance without abstinence 
will have no charm for him ; nor purity without 
a vow ; nor self-denial without austerity ; nor 
patience without stoicism ; nor charity without 
a trumpet. The man of sackcloth, who was a 
prodigy of holiness in the cloister, becomes, if 
transported into the sphere of domestic life, a 
monster of selfishness and sensuality. 

Time, which insensibly aggravates the abuses 
of every corrupt system, does also furnish an 
apology, more and more valid from age to age, 
for the conduct of the individuals who spring 
up in succession to act their parts within its 
machinery. While ancient institutions rest tran- 
quilly on their bases, while venerable usages 
obtain unquestioned submission, while opinion 
paces forwards with a slumbering step upon its 
deep-worn tracks, men are not more conscious 
of the enormity of the errors that may be charge- 
able upon their creeds and practices, than a 
secluded tribe is of the strangeness and inele- 
gance of the national costume. This principle 
should never be lost sight of when we are 
estimating the personal character of the members 
of the Romish Church before the period of the 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 249 

Reformation ; or indeed in later times, where no 
free and fair conflict of opinions has taken place. 
The system and its victims are always to be 
thought of apart. 

A recurrence, on the part of a people at 
large, to abstract principles of political or re- 
ligious truth, is a much less frequent event than 
the rarest of natural phenomena. It is only in 
consequence of shocks, happening in the social 
system by no means so often as earthquakes do 
in the material, that the human mind is rent 
from its habitudes, and placed in a position 
whence it may with advantage compare its 
opinions with universal truth. The Christian 
Church underwent not once the perils and bene- 
fits of such a convulsion during the long course 
of fifteen hundred years. Throughout that pro- 
tracted space of time the men of each age, with 
few exceptions, quietly deemed that to be good 
which their fathers had thought so ; and as 
naturally delivered it to their successors, en- 
dorsed with their own solemn approbation. In 
forming an opinion therefore of the merits of 
individuals, justice, we need not say candour, 
demands that the whole, or almost the whole 
amount of the abstract error of the system within 
which, by accident of birth, they move, should 
be deducted from the reckoning. This sort of 
justice may especially be claimed in behalf of 
those who rather acquiesced in the religious 
modes of their times, than appeared as its active 



250 INGREDIENTS OF THE 

champions. Thus we excuse the originators and 
early supporters of a bad system, on the ground 
of their ignorance of its evil tendency and actual 
consequences ; * and again we palliate the fault 
of its adherents in a late age, by pleading for 
them the influence of that natural sentiment of 
respect which is paid to antiquity. 

These proper allowances being made, there 
will be no difficulty in turning from an indignant 
reprobation of the monkish practices, to a chari- 
table and consoling belief of the personal virtues 
and even eminent piety of many who, in every 
age, have fretted away an unblessed existence 
within that dungeon of religious delusion — the 
monastery. In default of complete evidence, yet 
on the ground of some substantial proof, it is 
allowable to hope that the monastic orders at all 
times included many spiritual members, f There 



* Perhaps the treatment which Jovinian and Vigilantius received 
from Jerom, Ambrose, and Augustine, may be thought to detract 
very much from the validity of the apology here offered for the 
ancient abettors of monachism. But the circumstances of the case 
are involved in too much obscurity to allow a distinct opinion to be 
formed on the subject. The protest of Jovinian against the prevailing 
errors of the Church might be connected with some extravagance of 
belief, or some impropriety of conduct which prevented his testimony 
from being listened to with respect. Yet certainly the appearances of 
the case show decidedly against both Jerom and Ambrose. Augus- 
tine knew little personally of the supposed error against which he 
inveighed. 

f The " De Imitatione Christi " alone affords proof enough of the 
possibility of the existence of elevated piety in the monastery. It 
abounds also with indications of the petty persecution to which a 
spiritual monk was exposed among his brethren. 



ANCIENT MONACHISM. 251 

is even reason to believe that a better style of 
sentiment, and less extravagance, less fanatical 
heat, less knavish pretension, and more of humility 
and purity, existed here and there among the 
recluses of the tenth and eleventh, than among 
those of the fifth and sixth centuries. 

In the earlier period, though there might be 
much pretension to seclusion from the world, the 
monastery was in fact a house set on a hill in the 
midst of the christian community, and was ever 
surrounded by an admiring multitude; and its 
inmates might always find a ready revenue of 
glorification for the exploits and hypocrisies of 
supernatural sanctity.* But in the later periods, 
and when nothing hardly existed without doors 
except feudal ignorance and ferocity (we speak 
of the monasteries of Europe) many of the 
religious houses were real seclusions, and very 
far removed from any market of vulgar praise. 
Then within these establishments, it cannot be 
doubted, that the pious few found their virtue 
much rather guarded by the envious eyes of 



* Many of the ancient solitaries, far from living as their profession 
required, in seclusion, were accustomed to admit daily the visits of the 
multitude who nocked around them, to gaze at their austerities, to 
hear their harangues, or to be exorcised, or healed of their maladies. 
Symeon, ' the man of the pillar,' every day exhibited himself to a 
gaping crowd, collected often from distant countries. St. Anthony, 
more sincere in his love of retirement, when pestered by the plaudits 
of the vulgar in Lower Egypt, withdrew into a desert of the Thebais ; 
yet even there he soon found himself surrounded, not only by daemons, 
but worse, by admirers. See Athan. Op. vita S. Antonii. 



252 MONACHISM 

their less exemplary comrades, than endangered 
by drawing upon itself any sort of admiration. 
The spiritual monk (let not modern prejudices 
refuse to admit the phrase) glad to hide himself 
from the railleries or spite of the lax fraternity, 
kept close to his cell, and there passed his hours, 
not uncheered, nor undelicious, in prayer and 
meditation, in the perusal of religious books, 
and in the pleasant, edifying, and beneficial toils 
of transcription. Not seldom, as is proved by 
abundant evidence, the life-giving words of pro- 
phets and apostles were the subjects of these 
labours ; nor ought it to be doubted that while, 
through a long tract of centuries, the Scriptures, 
unknown abroad, were holding their course 
under-ground, if one might so speak, waiting the 
time of their glorious emerging, they imparted the 
substance of true knowledge to many souls, pent 
with them in the same sepulchral glooms. 

The monkish system retained its ancient style, 
with little alteration, until it received an enhance- 
ment and somewhat new character in France, in 
the hands of the followers of Jansen, and the 
Port Royal recluses. Then the old doctrine of 
religious abstraction — of the merging of the soul 
in Deity, and of the merit and efficacy of peni- 
tential suicide, was revived with an intensity 
never before known, was recommended by a 
much larger admixture of genuine scriptural 
knowledge than had ever before been connected 



IN MODERN TIMES. 253 

with the same system, and was graced by the 
brilliant talents and great learning of many of 
the party : while at the same time the endurance 
of persecution gave depth, force, and heroism, to 
the sentiments of the sect. 

It was inevitable that whatever of good might 
arise within the Church of Rome, and remain in 
allegiance to it, must pass over to the ancient 
and venerated form of monkish piety. The re- 
ligion of the monastery was the only sort of 
devotedness and seriousness known to, or sanc- 
tioned by that Church. A new sect of fervent 
religionists could therefore do no otherwise than 
either fall into that style, or denounce it ; and 
the latter would have been to break from Rome, 
and to side with Huguenots. 

Embarrassed at every step by their professed 
submission to the authority of the Popes, which 
they perpetually felt to be at variance with the 
duty they owed to God, and heavily oppressed 
and galled by their necessary acquiescence in the 
flagrant errors of the Church in which alone they 
thought salvation could be had, and still more 
deeply injured by their own zealously loved 
ascetic doctrine, these good men obtained pos- 
session, and made profession of the great truths 
of Christianity under an incomparably heavier 
weight of disadvantage than has been sustained 
by any other class of Christians from the apo- 
stolic to the present times. They have left in 
their voluminous and valuable writings, a body 



254 MONACHISM 

of divinity, doctrinal and practical, which, when 
the peculiar circumstances of its production are 
considered, presents a matchless proof of the 
intrinsic power of Christianity, upbearing so 
ponderous a mass of error. 

Nevertheless, while the Port Royal divines and 
their friends are perused with pleasure and ad- 
vantage, and while the reader is often inclined 
to admit that in depth, fervour, and solemnity of 
religious feeling, in richness and elevation of 
thought, in holy abstraction from earthly inte- 
rests, in devotedness of zeal, and in the exem- 
plification of some difficult duties, they much 
surpass the divines of England, he still feels, and 
sometimes when he can hardly assign the grounds 
of his dissatisfaction, that a vein of illusiveness 
runs through every page. Although the great 
principles of religion are much more distinctly 
and more feelingly produced than generally they 
are in the writings of the Fathers, and though the 
evidence of genuine and exalted piety is abundant 
and unquestionable ; yet is there an infection of 
idealism, tainting every sentiment ; a mist of the 
imagination, obscuring every doctrine. In turn- 
ing from the French writers of this school to 
our own standard divines, the reader is conscious 
of a sensation that might be compared to that 
felt by one who escapes into pure air from a 
chamber in which, though it was possible to live, 
respiration was oppressed by the presence of 
mephitic exhalations. 



IN MODERN TIMES. 255 

Enfeebled by the enthusiasm to which they so 
fondly clung, the piety of these admirable men 
failed in the force necessary to carry them trium- 
phantly through the conflict with their atrocious 
enemy — f the Society.' They were themselves 
in too many points vulnerable, to close fearlessly 
wdth their adversary ; and they grasped the 
sword of the Spirit in too infirm a manner to be 
able to drive home a deadly thrust. Had it been 
otherwise, had they been free, not merely from 
the shackle of submission to Rome, but free 
from the debilitating influence of mysticism and 
monkish notions, their moral force, their talent, 
their learning, and their self-devotion, might 
have sufficed, first for the overthrow of their im- 
mediate antagonist, whose bad cause and worse 
arguments were hardly supported against the 
augmenting weight of public opinion, even by 
the whole power of the court. Then might 
they, not improbably, have supplied the impulse 
necessary to achieve the emancipation of the 
Gallican church from the thraldom of Rome ; 
an event which seemed more than once on the 
eve of accomplishment. And if, at the same 
moment, the Protestants of France had received 
just that degree of indulgence, of mere suffer- 
ance, which was demanded, we do not say by 
justice and mercy, but by a politic regard to 
the national welfare ; and if by these means a 
substantially sound, though perhaps partial 
reform had taken place within the dominant 



256 MONACHISM 

Church, and dissent been allowed to spread itself 
amicably through the interstices of the eccle- 
siastical structure ; if religious liberty, not 
indeed in the temper of republican contumacy, 
but in the christian spirit of quiet and grateful 
humility, had taken root in France, is it too 
much to say that Atheism could never have 
become, as it did, the national opinion, and that 
the consequent solution of the social system in 
blood could never have happened ? 

The Jansenists and the inmates of Port Royal, 
and many of their favourers, displayed a con- 
stancy that would doubtless have carried them 
through the fires of martyrdom. But the intel- 
lectual courage necessary to bear them fearlessly 
through an examination of the errors of the 
papal superstition could spring only from a 
healthy force of mind, utterly incompatible with 
the dotings of religious abstraction, with the 
petty solicitudes of sackclothed abstinence, with 
the trivial ceremonials of the daily ritual, with 
the prim niceties of behaviour that pin down 
the body and soul of a Romish regular to his 
parchment-pattern of artificial sanctity. The 
Jansenists had not such courage : if they wor- 
shipped not the beast, they cringed before him : 
he planted his dragon-foot upon their necks, and 
their wisdom and their virtues were lost for ever 
to France. 

The monk of Wittemberg had taken a bolder 
and a better course. When he began to find 



IN MODERN TIMES. 257 

fault with Rome, he rejected not only its own 
flagrant and recent corruptions ; but the specious 
delusions it had inherited from the ancient 
church ; and after a short struggle with the 
prejudices of education, he became, not only no 
papist, but no monk. Full fraught with the 
principles and spirit of the Bible, he denounced 
as well the venerable errors of the fathers, as 
the scarlet sins of the mother of impurities ; and 
was as little a disciple of Jerom, of Gregory, and 
of Basil, as of the doctors of the Vatican. 

The English reformers trod the ground of 
theological inquiry with the same manly step ; 
and that firm step shook the monasteries to the 
dust. Those great and good men went back 
to the Scriptures, where they found at once the 
great realities of religion, a condemning law, 
a justifying Gospel, and a provision of grace for 
a life of true holiness. With these substantial 
principles in their hearts, they spurned whatever 
was trivial and spurious, and amid the fires of 
persecution, reared the structure, a structure 
still unshaken, of religion for England, upon 
"the foundation of the apostles and prophets." 
Had there existed a taste for mysticism, a fond- 
ness for penitential austerities, a cringing defer- 
ence to the fathers, among the divines of the 
time of Edward VI. such a disposition must, so 
far as known causes are to be calculated upon, 
have utterly spoiled the reformation in England ; 
or have postponed it a hundred years. 



258 NOTE. 

Additional Note. — The almost incredible extent to which the 
religious delusion of the times had vitiated the common sense of 
Christians, is strikingly displayed in the sort of opposition that was 
sometimes made to the prevailing notions. Thus we find the Fathers 
in the midst of their sophistical and absurd encomiums of celibacy, 
now and then putting in a saving plea for marriage. But how im- 
mense an aberration from right reason must have taken place before 
there could be any need for such apologies. The Scriptures declare 
that " God formed man, male and female, and blessed them, and 
said, Be fruitful and multiply." In not less explicit terms our Lord 
authenticates the sacredness of the conjugal union, " a man shall 
leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife :" and 
the apostle of the Lord, authoritatively affirms that marriage is 
honourable in all ; and he enjoins a bishop to be " the husband of 
one wife." Nevertheless, and in contempt of the plainest evidence, 
Christian teachers, within three or four generations of the apostolic 
age, are found, almost universally attempting to make void the law 
of God, by their inventions ; or if compelled to acknowledge its autho- 
rity, yet doing so in an indirect and reluctant manner. 

Some of the favourers of monkery were so impiously bold, as to 
call marriage "a doctrine of the devil." But this horrible audacity 
is strongly reprobated by those who mention it. (Clemens Alex. 
Strom. III.) Theodoret speaks of the sentiment as wickedly heretical, 
and no reputable writer can be charged with advancing so profane an 
opinion. Clemens condemns those who inveigh against the institution 
of God, which is, he says, dvayKala (3or)66s and \i[j.rjv aaxppoo-vvrjs, 
and contents himself with lauding the superior merit, purity, and 
advantage of the single life. Cyril of Jerusalem has been already 
quoted to the same effect. Gregory Nyssen, (De Virginitate, c. viii.) 
looks about and finds an apology for the divine appointment of ma- 
trimony on this ground, that it is the means of bringing into the world 
those who may serve and please God. Chrysostom allows that marriage 
does not impede virtue. Theophylact speaks to the same purpose ; 
and many others save their consistency in professing to submit to the 
authority of scripture, by occasional admissions of the same sort. 
And yet, whenever a solitary voice was raised in reprehension of the 
fundamental principle of monkery, it was presently lost amid the din 
and angry clamours of fanatical zeal. The natural and very mo- 
mentous question — Are these practices authorized by the word of 
God ? seems never once, from the days of Cyprian to the time of the 
Reformation, to have been fairly and calmly discussed. With such 
an instance before us of the infatuating power of religious illusion, 



NOTE. 259 

ought not the church in every age to entertain a constant jealousy 
of itself; and especially when on any point of belief or practice a re- 
luctance is felt to abide by the consequences of an appeal to scripture ? 
Happily, in the age in which we live, if there be not on all hands a 
perfect simplicity of deference to the Bible, there is a nearer approach 
to it than has perhaps ever existed diffusedly through the church 
since the days of the apostles : and happily also, there are strong 
indications on all sides of an increasing deference to the only standard 
of truth and morals. This, by eminence, is the bright omen of the 
times. 



s2 



SECTION X. 

HINTS ON THE PROBABLE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY, 
SUBMITTED ESPECIALLY TO THOSE WHO MISUSE THE 
TERM, ENTHUSIASM. 

To waive the exercise of discrimination, can, 
under no imaginable circumstances, be advan- 
tageous to any man ; nor is it ever otherwise 
than absurd to persist in an error which might 
be corrected by a moment's attention to obvious 
facts. But assuredly some such suspension of 
good sense has taken place with those who ac- 
custom themselves to designate, in a mass, as 
enthusiasts, the many thousands of their country- 
men, of all communions, at the present time 
making profession of the doctrines of the Re- 
formation. 

All who are not wilfully ignorant must know 
that what is vulgarly called ' the religious world/ 
now includes, not only myriads of the lower, 
and middle, and imperfectly educated classes, in 
relation to whom self-complacent arrogance may 
easily find pretexts of scorn, and not only many 
of the opulent and the noble ; but a fair pro- 
portion also of all the talent, and learning, and 
brilliancy of mind, that adorns the professional 
circles, and that vivifies the literature of the 



ABUSE OF THE TERM, ENTHUSIASM. 261 

country. What appropriateness is there then 
left to language, if a phrase of supercilious 
import is to be attached to the names of men of 
vigorous understanding, and energetic character, 
and eminent acquirement, of men, successful in 
their several courses, and accomplished in what- 
ever gives grace to human nature ? When 
those, who in no assignable good quality can be 
deemed inferior to their competitors on the arena 
of life, are, on account of their religious opinions 
and practices, called enthusiasts, it is evident 
that nothing is actually effected but the an- 
nulling of the contumelious power of the term 
so misused. We may indeed in this manner 
neutralise the significance of a word; or we 
may draw upon ourselves the imputation of ma- 
lignant prejudice ; but we cannot reduce from 
their rank those who stand firmly on the high 
stages of literary or philosophical eminence. 

But if arrogance and malignity itself be 
ashamed of so flagrant an abuse of the word 
enthusiast ; then neither ought that epithet 
(unless where special proof can be adduced) to 
be assigned to the multitude, holding the very 
same opinions : for the eminent few, seeing that 
they profess these tenets and adhere to these 
practices deliberately, and explicitly, must be 
allowed the privilege of redeeming their belief 
and usages from contempt, by whomsoever 
maintained. 

An opinion gravely professed by a man of 



262 PROBABLE SPREAD 

sense and education, demands respectful consi- 
deration — demands, and actually receives it from 
all whose own sense and education give them a 
correlative right : and whoever offends against 
this sort of courtesy may fairly be deemed to 
have forfeited the privileges it secures. But 
retaliation is declined by those who might use 
it, and it is declined on the ground not only of 
christian meekness, but of commiseration towards 
such violators of candour and good manners, 
whom they hold to be acting under the influence 
of an infatuation, at once deplorable and fatal. 

That this infatuation should, in any great 
number of instances, be dispelled by the mere 
shewing of reasons, is what the religionists — 
the ' enthusiasts/ by no means expect : they too 
well understand the nature of the malady, and 
too well know its inveteracy, to imagine that 
it may be dissipated by force of argument, 
even though the cause were in the hands of 
a college of dialecticians. Nevertheless they 
entertain an expectation (and have evidence to 
shew h\. support of it) which, if it be realized, 
will supersede many difficult controversies, and 
rob impiety for ever of its only effectual prop, 
the suffrage of the many. This expectation is 
nothing less than that Christianity — or, for the 
sake of distinctness, let it be said the religion 
of the Reformation — the religion of Wycliffe, 
and Latimer, and Cranmer, and Jewel, and 
Hooker, and Owen, and Howe, and Baxter, will 






OF CHRISTIANITY. 263 

gain, ere long, unquestioned ascendency, will 
bear down infidelity and false doctrine, and 
absorb schism, and possess itself of all power, 
and rule the family of man. 

In support of a belief like this many reasons 
might be urged, some of which can be expected 
to have weight only with the religious ; while 
others may well claim attention from all, what- 
ever may be their opinion of Christianity, who 
are at once competent and accustomed to anti- 
cipate the probable course of human affairs. 

There are three distinct methods in which an 
inquiry of this sort may be conducted : of these, 
the first, is the method of philosophical calcula- 
tion, on the known principles of human nature, 
and which, without either denying or assuming the 
truth of Christianity, forecasts, from past events 
and present appearances, the probable futurity. 
To pursue such calculations efficiently, prepos- 
sessions of all kinds, both sceptical and religious, 
should be held in abeyance, while the naked facts 
that belong to the problem are contemplated as 
from the remoteness of a neutral position. 

The reader and writer of this page may each 
have formed his estimate of the intrinsic force 
and validity of certain opinions ; but this pri- 
vate estimate may happen to be much above, or 
much below the level which perfect reason would 
approve ; and, be it what it may, it can avail 
nothing for our present purpose. If we are to 
calculate the probable extension or extinction of 



264 PROBABLE SPREAD 

those opinions, we must consult the evidence 
of facts on a large scale ; and especially must 
observe what manifestations of intrinsic power 
they have given on certain peculiar and critical 
occasions. This is the only course that can be 
deemed satisfactory, or that is conformed to the 
procedures of modern science. We do not now 
wish to ask a seraph if such or such a dogma 
is held to be true in heaven ; what we have to 
do is to learn from the suffrage of the millions 
of mankind whether it has a permanent power 
to command and to regain ascendency over the 
human mind. This question must be asked of 
history, and we must take care to open the book 
at those pages where the great eras of religious 
revolution are described. Having glanced at the 
past, our next business will be to look at the 
present : this kind of divination is the only one 
known to the principles of philosophical inquiry. 

The early triumph of the Gospel over the 
fascinating idolatries and the astute atheism of 
Greece and Rome, has been often insisted upon, 
(and conclusively) as evidence of its truth. But 
with that argument we have nothing now to do ; 
yet if the subject were not a very hackneyed 
one, it might well be brought forward, in all 
its details, in proof of a different point — namely, 
the innate power of the religion of the Bible to 
vanquish the hearts of men. An opponent may 
here choose his alternative : either let him grant 



\ 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 265 

that Christianity triumphed because it was true 
and divine ; or let him deny that it had any aid 
from heaven. In the former case we shall be 
entitled to infer that the religion of God must 
at length universally prevail; or in the latter, 
may strongly argue that this doctrine possesses 
little less than an omnipotence of intrinsic force, 
by which it obtained success under circumstances 
of opposition, such as made its triumph seem even 
to its enemies miraculous : and on this ground 
the expectation of its future prevalence cannot 
be thought unreasonable. 

But if there were room to imagine that the 
first spread of Christianity was owing rather to 
an accidental conjuncture of favouring circum- 
stances, than to its real power over the human 
mind ; or if it might be thought that any such 
peculiar virtue was all spent and exhausted in its 
first expansive effort, then it is natural to look 
to the next occasion on which the opinions of 
mankind were put in fermentation, and to watch 
in what manner the system of the Bible then rode 
over the high billows of political, religious, and 
intellectual commotion. It was a fair trial for 
Christianity, and a trial essentially different from 
its first, when, in the fifteenth century, after 
having been corrupted in every part to a state 
of loathsome ulceration, it had to contend for 
existence, and to work its own renovation, at the 
moment of the most extraordinary expansion 
of the human intellect that has ever happened. 



266 



PROBABLE SPREAD 












At that moment, when the splendid literature 
of the ancient world started from its tomb, 
and kindled a blaze of universal admiration ; 
at that moment when the first beams of sound 
philosophy broke over the nations ; and when the 
revival of the useful arts gave at once elasticity 
to the minds of the million, and a check of 
practical influence to the minds of the few; 
at the moment when the necromancy of the press 
came into play to expose and explode necromancy 
of every other kind ; and when the discovery 
of new continents, and of a new path to the old, 
tended to supplant a taste for whatever is 
visionary, by imparting a vivid taste for what is 
substantial ; at such a time, which seemed to 
leave no chance of continued existence to aught 
that was not in its nature vigorous, might it not 
confidently have been said — This must be the 
crisis of Christianity ? if it be not inwardly sound, 
if it have not a true hold of human nature, if it 
be a thing of feebleness and dotage, fit only for 
cells, and cowls, and the precincts of spiritual 
despotism ; if it be not adapted to the world of 
action, if it have no sympathy with the feelings 
of men, of freemen ; nothing can save it : no 
power of princes, no devices of priests, will avail 
to rear it anew, and to replace it in the veneration 
of the people ; at least not in any country where 
has been felt the freshening gale of intellectual 
life. The result of this crisis need not be narrated. 
It may even be doubted, had not Christianity 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 267 

been fraught with power, if all the influence of 
kings, and craft of priests could have upheld it in 
any part of Europe, after the revival of learning; 
certainly not in those countries which received at 
the same time the invigoration of political liberty, 
of science, and of commerce. 

Whether the religion for which the reformers 
suffered, " was from heaven or of men," is not 
our question ; but whether it is not a religion of 
robust constitution, framed to endure, and to 
spread, and to vanquish the hearts of men ? 
With the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries in view, it is asked if Christianity is a 
system that must always lean upon ignorance, and 
craft, and despotism, and which, when those rotten 
stays are removed, must fail and be seen no more ? 

Yet another species of trial was in store to 
give proof of the indestructibility and victorious 
power of Christianity. It remained to be seen 
whether, when the agitations, political and moral, 
consequent upon the great schism which had 
taken place in Europe had subsided, and when 
the season of slumber and exhaustion came on, 
and when human reason, strengthened and re- 
fined by physical science and elegant literature, 
should awake fully to the consciousness of its 
powers ; whether then the religion of the Bible 
could retain its hold of the nations ; or at least 
of those of them that enjoyed without limit 
the happy influences of political liberty, and 
intellectual light. This was a sort of probation 



268 PROBABLE SPREAD 

which Christianity had never before passed 
through. 

And what were the omens under which it en- 
tered upon the new trial of its strength ? Were 
the friends of Christianity at that moment of 
portentous conflict awake, and vigilant, and 
stout-hearted, and thoroughly armed to repel 
assaults ? The very reverse was the fact : for 
at the instant when the atheistical conspiracy 
made its long-concerted, well-advised and con- 
sentaneous attack, there was scarcely a pulse 
of life left in the Christian body, in any one 
of the Protestant states. The old supersti- 
tions had crawled back into many of their 
ancient corners. In other quarters the spirit 
of protestation against those superstitions had 
breathed itself away in trivial wranglings, or 
had given place to infidelity — infidelity ag- 
gravated by stalled hypocrisy. The Church of 
England, the chief prop of modern Christianity, 
was then to a great extent torpid, and faint- 
ing under the incubus either of false doctrine 
or of a secular spirit ; at least seemed inca- 
pable of the effort which the peril of the time 
demanded : few indeed of her sons were pano- 
plied, and sound hearted, as champions in such 
a cause should be. Within a part only of a 
small body of Dissenters (for a part was smitten 
with the plague of heresy) and that part in great 
measure disqualified from free and energetic 
action by rigidities, and scruples, and divisions, 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 269 

was contained almost all the religious life and 
fervour any where to be found in Christendom. 

Meanwhile the infidel machinators had chosen 
their ground at leisure, and were wrought to the 
highest pitch of energy by a confident, and as 
it might seem, a well-founded hope of success. 
They were backed by the secret wishes, or the 
undissembled cheerings of almost the entire body 
of educated men throughout Europe. They 
used the only language then common to the 
civilized world, and a language which might 
be imagined to have been framed and finished 
designedly to accomplish the demolition of what- 
ever was grave and venerated ; a language, be- 
yond any other, of raillery, of insinuation, and of 
sophistry ; a language of polished missiles, whose 
temper could penetrate not only the cloak of 
imposture, but the shield of truth. 

At the same portentous moment the shocks 
and upheavings of political commotion opened 
a thousand fissures in the ancient structure of 
moral and religious sentiment ; and the enemies 
of Christianity, surprised by unexpected success, 
rushed forward to achieve an easy triumph. The 
firmest and the wisest friends of old opinions 
desponded, and many believed that a few years 
would see Atheism the universal doctrine of the 
western nations, as well as military despotism 
the only form of government. 

It is hard to imagine a single advantage that 
was lacking to the promoters of infidelity, or 



270 PROBABLE SPREAD 

a single circumstance of peril and ill-omen that 
was not present to deepen the gloom of the 
friends of religion. The actual issue of that 
signal crisis is before our eyes in the freshness of 
a recent event. Christianity — we ask not whether 
for the benefit or the injury of the world, has 
triumphed ; the mere fact is all that concerns 
our argument. But shall it be said, or if said, 
believed, that the late resurrection of the religion 
of the Bible has been managed in the cabinets 
of monarchs ? Have kings and emperors given 
this turn to public opinion, which now compels 
infidelity to hide its shame behind the very mask 
of hypocrisy that it had so lately torn from the 
face of the priest ? To come home to facts with 
which all must be familiar ; has there not been 
heard, within the last few years, from the most 
enlightened, the most sober-minded, and the 
freest people of Europe, a firm, articulate, spon- 
taneous, and cordial expression of preference, 
and of enhanced veneration towards Christianity ? 
Again then we ask — not if this religion be true, 
but if it have not, even beneath our own obser- 
vation, given proof of indestructible vigour ? 

The spread of the English stock, and lan- 
guage, and literature, over the North American 
continent, has afforded a distinct and very signi- 
ficant indication of the power of Christianity to 
retain its hold of the human mind, and of its 
aptness to run hand -in -hand with civilization, 
even when unaided by those secular succours to 



OF CHRISTIANITY.. 271 

which its enemies in malice, and some of its 
friends in over-caution, are prone to attribute 
too much importance. The tendency of repub- 
licanism, which obviously has some strong affi- 
nity with infidelity, and the connexion of the 
colonies, at the moment of their revolt, with 
France, and the prevalence of a peculiarly eager 
and uncorrected commercial temper, and the 
absence of every sort and semblance of restraint 
upon opinion, were concurrent circumstances, 
belonging to the infancy of the American Union, 
of a kind which put to the severest test the 
intrinsic power of Christianity, in retaining its 
hold of the human mind. Could infidel experi- 
menters have wished for conditions more equi- 
table under which to try the respective forces of 
the opposing systems ? 

And what has been the issue ? It is true that 
infidelity holds still its ground in the United 
States, as in Europe ; and there, as in Europe, 
keeps company with whatever is debauched, 
sordid, oppressive, reckless, ruffian - like. But 
at the same time Christianity has gained rather 
than lost ground, and shews itself there in a 
style of as much fervour and zeal as in England ; 
and perhaps, even has the advantage in these 
respects. Wherever, on that continent, good 
order and intelligence are spreading, there also 
the religion of the Bible spreads. And if it be 
probable that the English race, and language, 
and institutions, will, in a century, pervade its 



272 PROBABLE SPREAD 

deserts, all appearances favour the belief that 
the edifices of Christian worship will bless every 
landscape of the present wilderness that shall 
then "" blossom as the rose." 

Before, in pursuing this method of frigid 
calculation, the Christian doctrine be weighed 
against the several systems with which it must 
contend ere it wins its universal triumph, it is 
proper to inquire — what is the probability that 
a collision will actually take place. To estimate 
fairly this probability, those who are but slen- 
derly acquainted with the religious world, in the 
British Islands, in America, and in the Protes- 
tant states of the continent, must understand, 
much better than generally they do, the precise 
nature of the remarkable revolution that has, 
within the last thirty years, been effected in the 
sentiments of Christians on the subject of the 
diffusion of their religion. Such slenderly in- 
formed persons may very naturally imagine that 
the prodigious efforts that have of late been 
made to diffuse Christianity through the world 
have sprung simply from a heat and excitement, 
in its nature transient, and which, therefore, 
must be expected soon to subside. But this 
supposition will be found to be incomplete and 
erroneous. A stir and kindling of feeling has no 
doubt happened ; but this feeling, and the acti- 
vities which followed from it, have given occasion 
to the resurrection, so to speak, of a capital 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 273 

article of Christian morals, which, after lying 
almost latent for centuries, stands forth in un- 
disputed and prominent authority in the modern 
code of religious duty. This recovered principle is 
now constantly recognized and enforced, and is 
seen to exert its influence, not merely within 
the upper circles of central movement, but even 
in the remotest orbits of religious feeling, where 
warmth and energy are manifestly not excessive. 

The founder of Christianity left with his dis- 
ciples the unlimited injunction to go forth into 
all the world and to preach the Gospel to every 
creature. This command, corroborated by others 
of equivalent import, and enforced by the very 
nature of the Christian doctrine, and by the 
spirit of Christian charity, is now understood and 
acknowledged, in a manner new to the Church, 
to be of universal obligation, so that no Chris- 
tian, how obscure soever may be his station, or 
small his talents, or limited his means, can be 
held to stand altogether excused from the duty 
of fulfilling, in some way, the last mandate of his 
Lord. Thus understood, this command makes 
every believer a preacher and a missionary ; or at 
least obliges him to see to it, so far as his ability 
extends, that the labours of diffusive evangeliza- 
tion are actually performed by a substitute. 

Before the commencement of the recent mis- 
sionary efforts, there had been missions to the 
heathen. But these, if carried on with any 
thing more than a perfunctory assiduity, were 



274 PROBABLE SPREAD 

anomalous to the general feeling of Christians, 
and rested on the exemplary zeal of individuals* 
But the modern missions are maintained, neither 
by the zeal of the few, nor by the mere zeal of 
the many ; but rather by the deep-seated impul- 
sive power of a grave and irresistible conviction, 
pressing on the conscience even of the inert and 
the selfish ; and much more on the hearts of the 
fervent and devoted — That a Christian has no 
more liberty to withhold his aid and service from 
these evangelizing associations, than he has to 
abandon the duties of common life ; and that, for 
a man to profess hope in Christ, and to deny 
what he might spare to promote the diffusion of 
the Gospel, is the most egregious of all practical 
solecisms. 

Those who are ignorant of this remarkable 
revolution of sentiment, or who may be sceptical 
concerning it, would do well to take up at hazard 
any dozen of the discourses, and reports, and 
tracts, that are yearly, and monthly, and weekly, 
flooding from the religious press, among which 
they will hardly find one that does not assume 
this as an admitted principle, and as the ultimate 
and irresistible motive of every hortatory appeal. 
And if among these ephemera, there are any, 
and such are not seldom to be found, that bear 
the stamp of superior intelligence, it will be seen 
almost invariably, that the reasoner summons all 
the force of his mind, not so much to prove that 
every Christian is bound to promote the diffusion 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 275 

of scriptural knowledge, as, by some new inge- 
nuity of illustration, to place the acknowledged 
duty in a stronger light, or to shew in what 
manner it bears upon the specific object for 
which he pleads. And it is to be noted that 
these popular addresses exhibit, for the most 
part, much more of the gravity and calmness 
which naturally belong to the style of those who 
feel that they are standing upon undisputed 
ground, than of the solicitude or the inflamma- 
tory verbosity and turgidness of writers who are 
labouring to fan a decaying blaze of indefensible 
enthusiasm. . 

Or again ; it may well be inferred that the 
modern missionary zeal springs from motives of 
a substantial and permanent kind, since they 
affect, without exception, every body of Chris- 
tians (holding the doctrine of the Reformation) 
and are felt in precisely the same manner by 
the Christians of every Protestant community 
of Europe. And moreover the feeling has not 
declined, but has sensibly increased since the 
first years of its activity ; and it has endured the 
trial, in some instances, of severe and long-con- 
tinued discomfitures, or of very partial success. 
These are indications of a spring of action far 
more sedate and enduring than any feverish ex- 
citement can ever supply. 

But if the extent, and the power, and the 
promise of the existing missionary zeal are to 
be duly estimated, the inquirer should visit the 

t 2 



276 PROBABLE SPREAD 

homes of our religious folks ; or enter the schools 
in which their children are trained, and there 
learn what is the doctrine inculcated upon those 
who are rising up to take place on the arena of 
life : or let him listen to the hymns they lisp, 
and examine the tracts they read, and he will 
meet the same great principle in a thousand 
manners enforced, namely — That it is the duty 
of every Christian, young or old, rich or poor, to 
take part in sending the Gospel to all nations. 
Or let the observer notice the Missionary Box, 
in the school-room, in the nursery, in the shop- 
parlour, in the farm-house kitchen, in the cottage, 
of the religious ; and let him mark multiform 
contrivances for swelling the amount of the 
revenues of Christian charity, devised, and zea- 
lously persisted in, by youths and by little ones, 
whose parents, at the same age, thought of no- 
thing but of cakes and sports. 

And does all this steady movement, this 
wide-spreading and closely-compacted system of 
united effort, this mechanism in which infancy 
as well as maturity takes its part, indicate no- 
thing for futurity ? Shall it all have passed 
away and be forgotten with the present genera- 
tion ? If indeed it were confined to a sect, or 
to a province, or to a country, it might, though 
that were unlikely ; but not if it be the common 
style of Christian feeling in every part of the 
world where fervent Christianity exists at all. 
Particular associations may be dissolved, and 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 277 

particular schemes may be broken up ; standard- 
bearers in the sacred cause may faint ; the zeal 
of certain communities may fade ; or political 
disasters may here and there bring ruin upon 
pious labours ; but unless devastation universal 
sweeps over the face of the civilized world, the 
doctrine of missionary zeal, which has been 
broad-cast over Christendom, in the present day, 
will not fail of coming to its harvest. And now 
if there are any who wish ill to Christianity, let 
them hasten to prevent the measures of its 
friends, let them teach their babes to hate the 
Gospel; for those who love it are taking such 
means to insure its future triumph as can hardly 
fail of success, and such as, on all common 
grounds of calculation, make it likely that even 
the sons and the daughters of the present race 
of infidels may be involved in the approaching 
conquests of the Son of David, and shall actually 
join in the loud hosanna that announces his ac- 
cession to the throne of universal empire. 

It is then more than barely probable — it is 
almost certain, that the attempt to offer Christi- 
anity to all nations will not presently be aban- 
doned. The next question is this — whether, on 
grounds of frigid calculation, such attempts are 
recommended by any fair promise of success. 

When the term calculation, is used in refer- 
ence to the diffusion of Christianity, a use of 
the word which perhaps may somewhat offend 



278 PROBABLE SPREAD 

the ear of piety, an important distinction must 
be kept in view between that cordial admission 
of the Gospel which renovates the hearts of men 
individually ; and that change of opinion and 
profession which may be brought about among a 
people by means that fall short of possessing 
efficiency to produce repentance and faith. And 
while the former must every where, at home or 
abroad, be the great object aimed at and desired 
by the Christian ministry, the latter is both in 
itself, even if nothing more were done, and as a 
preliminary and probable means conducing to 
the production of genuine piety, a most desirable 
and happy revolution. It is moreover a revo- 
lution which may be reckoned to lie always 
within the range of human agency, when skilfully 
and perseveringly applied. For Christianity is 
a species of knowledge, in its nature communi- 
cable, and, as a system of opinions, or as a code 
of morals, possesses a manifest superiority when 
fairly brought into comparison with any existing 
religious system. And if it may reasonably be 
asked concerning any people — how shall they 
believe without a preacher ? the converse ques- 
tion might, with little less confidence be put — 
how shall they not believe with one ? 

Pagan and Mohammedan nations ought to be 
thought of by a Christian people just as the 
master of a numerous household, if he be wise 
and benevolent, thinks of the untutored members 
of his family; for although no actual subjection 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 279 

is owned on the one side, or can be exercised on 
the other, there exists, virtually, the relationship 
and the responsibilities of that domination which 
is ever possessed by knowledge, and intelligence, 
and virtue, over ignorance and degradation. 
Now, as the master of a family may, to a greater 
or less extent, infallibly succeed by zeal, affection, 
skill, and patience, in dispelling the superstitions 
and the ignorance which have happened to come 
under his roof: so, with zeal, affection, skill, and 
patience, proportioned to the greatness of the 
work, may the Christian nations at length cer- 
tainly effect a cleansing of the earth from the 
cruelties and impurities of polytheism. 

Nothing inconsistent with the humblest and 
most devout dependence upon the divine agency 
is implied in this supposition, any more than in 
the belief that our children and servants may be 
trained in the knowledge of God, and in the 
decencies of Christian worship. Is there not 
reason to think that an inattention to this plain 
principle has prevented, in some measure, the 
adoption of those vigorous and extended opera- 
tions which common sense prescribes as the 
proper and probable means of diffusing at once 
civilization and religion through the world ? 

The probability of a change of religion on the 
part of an entire people may, it is true, be 
argued on the adverse as well as on the favour- 
able side, with great appearance of reason. The 
obstinacy of the human mind in adhering to the 



280 



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worse, even when the better is presented to its 
choice, seems not seldom to possess the invin- 
cibility of a physical law ; and it has been found 
as impracticable to reform an absurd usage, as to 
remodel the national physiognomy. How often 
have both reason and despotism been baffled in 
their endeavours to effect even a trivial alteration 
in ancient usages or costumes ; and there has 
been room to suppose, that the tenacity of life 
belonging to customs or opinions bears direct 
proportion always to their absurdity and mis- 
chievous consequence. The high antiquity and 
the still broken force of the Asiatic idolatries, 
in themselves so hideous, so burdensome, and so 
sanguinary, stand forth as most impressive and 
appalling confirmations of the truth that what- 
ever has once gained for itself the sanction of 
time, may boldly defy the assaults of reason. 
And then, when religious opinions and practices 
are in question, we have not merely to break 
through the iron law of immemorial usage, but 
to encounter the living opposition of the priest- 
hood, already firmly seated in the cloud-girt 
throne of supposed supernatural power, and in- 
terested as deeply as men can be who have at 
stake their civil existence, and their credit, and 
their means of luxurious idleness. Again, in 
most instances, ancient religious opinions have 
sent down their roots through the solid structure 
of the civil institutions of the people : the old 
superstition is an oak that was sown by the 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 281 

builder of the state, has actually pervaded the 
entire foundations, and forms now the living 
bond-timber, to remove which would be to bring 
to the ground the whole tottering masonry of 
the social system. 

When this side of the question has been long 
and exclusively contemplated, the schemes of 
missionary zeal may well seem to be utterly 
chimerical ; or if not chimerical, dangerous. 
But the friends of mankind do not forget that 
the very same objects may be viewed in another 
light. Even before particular facts are appealed 
to, an hypothesis of an opposite kind may 
plausibly be advanced. It may be alleged that 
Opinion — the invisible power that rules the 
world, is a name without substance, which, 
though omnipotent so long as it is thought to 
be so, vanishes quicker than a mist, when once 
suspected to be impotent. It might also with 
great appearance of reason be affirmed as a 
universal law of the moral world, that the better, 
when fairly brought into collision with the worse, 
possesses an infallible certainty of ultimate pre- 
valence. 

On this same principle, it is common to affirm, 
that the improved mechanical processes of a 
scientific people will at length necessarily sup- 
plant the operose, and wasteful, and inefficient 
methods practised by half- civilized nations. And 
thus probably will the ruinous and depopulating 
usages of despotism give way before the wealth- 



282 



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giving maxims of legal government. And thus 
also may it be hoped that a pure theology, and 
a pure morality, shall inevitably, if zealously 
diffused, prevail till they have removed all super- 
stitions, with all their corruptions. Even on 
the lowest principles of natural theology, some 
such medicative power may be presumed to 
have been imparted to the human system, as a 
provision against the progress of utter moral 
dissolution. 



But while an argument of this sort is at issue, 
the simple method of appealing to such facts as 
may seem to bear conclusively upon the question, 
will assuredly not be neglected ; and it will be 
asked, whether there are on record any instances 
which give a peremptory negative to the assertion 
that a national change of religion ought to be 
thought of as an event in the last degree im- 
probable. And why should not the spread and 
triumph of Christianity in the first ages of its 
promulgation be accepted as an instance abso- 
lutely conclusive, and in the fullest sense 
analogous to the problem that is to be solved ? 
To whatever causes that first prevalence of the 
religion of the Bible may be attributed, it is still 
an unquestioned fact that entire nations, not 
one or two, but many, and in every stage of 
advancement on the course of civilization, were 
actually brought to abandon their ancient super- 
stitions, and to profess the Gospel. 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 283 

These amazing revolutions took place under 
almost every imaginable variety of circumstances, 
and they occupied a period of not more than 
three centuries, and the substantial part of the 
change had been wrought, to a great extent, 
before the aid of political succour came in, and 
even in the front of political opposition. People 
after people fell away from their idolatries, and 
assumed (with how much or how little of cordial 
feeling matters not) the Christian name and 
code. 

Here once more the objector must be urged to 
select his alternative. — If Christianity won this 
wide success by aid from heaven, then who will 
profess to believe that a religion so supported 
shall not in the end vanquish mankind ? Or if 
not, then manifestly, the fact of the spread of 
Christianity in the east, and in the west, in the 
north, and in the south, destroys altogether the 
supposed improbability of its again supplanting 
idolatry. Nothing inseparable from human na- 
ture, nothing invincible stands in the way of the 
diffusion of our faith among either polished or 
barbarous polytheists ; for already has it been 
victorious in both kinds. Let it be affirmed and 
granted, that the religious infatuations of man- 
kind are firm as adamant; still it is a fact that a 
hammer harder than adamant once shattered the 
rock to atoms. And now it is proposed again to 
smite the same substance with the same instru- 
ment ; and are those to be deemed irrational 



284 PROBABLE SPREAD 

who anticipate the same success ? In such an 
anticipation neither the superior purity and ex- 
cellence of Christianity need be assumed, nor its 
truth : nothing is peremptorily affirmed but its 
well-attested efficiency to subvert and supplant 
other religious systems. A myriad of philoso- 
phists may clamorously affirm the missionary 
project to be insane. Nevertheless Christians, 
listening rather to the history of their religion 
than to the harangues of its modern oppugners, 
will go on to preach in every land, " That men 
should turn from dumb idols to serve the living 
God." 

That during a period of more than a thousand 
years Christianity should hardly have gained a 
foot of ground from polytheism, and should 
in some quarters have been driven in from its 
ancient frontiers, is only natural, seeing that, 
in the whole course of that time, no extended 
endeavours, or none guided and impelled by the 
genuine principles of the Gospel, were made to 
diffuse it. Angels have no commission to become 
evangelists, and if men neglect their duty in this 
instance, no means remain for supplying their 
lack of service. The modern missionary enter- 
prises (exclusive of some very limited attempts) 
do not yet date forty years ; and while the fact 
that this spirit of Christian zeal has maintained 
itself so long attests its solidity, and gives 
promise of its perpetuity, its recentness (recent 
compared with the work to be achieved) may 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 285 

justly be alleged in reply to those who ask, 
from whatever motive, Why are not the nations 
converted ? Within this short space of time the 
religious public has had to be formed to a right 
feeling on the new subject ; and all the practical 
wisdom that belongs to an enterprise so immense 
and so difficult has had to be acquired ; and the 
agents of the work at home and abroad, to be 
trained ; and the initiatory obstacle, that occa- 
sioned by diversity of language, to be removed. 
The preparatives have now been passed through, 
and successes obtained large and complete enough 
to quash all objection, and more than enough 
to recompense what they have cost. And these 
successes, moreover, warrant the belief that the 
universal prevalence of Christianity (considered 
simply as an. exterior profession) is suspended 
upon the continuance of the missionary zeal 
among the Christians of Europe and America. 
Instead of allowing speculation to flit vaguely 
and ineptly over all the desolate places of the 
earth's surface, it will be better, if we would 
make our calculation definite, to fix upon a single 
region ; and while we assume it as probable that 
the existing spirit of missionary vigilance and assi- 
duity and self-devotion will continue in vigour 
during the ensuing half- century ; endeavour 
roughly to estimate the chances of the entrance 
and spread of Christian light in that one region ; 
and let us select the region which may be deemed 
altogether to occupy the place of an ultimate 



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problem of evangelical enterprise. Thus an 
nounced, every one will of course think of China. 
Nothing hardly is more difficult than to view, 
in the nakedness of mere truth, any object remote 
from personal observation which has once filled 
the imagination with images of vastness and 
mystery. Thus it often happens that benevolent 
schemes are robbed of their fair chance of success 
by the fond illusions which are suffered to swell 
out an empty bulk, so as to hide from view the 
real difficulties that ought to be deliberately met. 
And thus it is usual for the timid to amuse their 
inaction by contemplating spectral forms of dan- 
ger or obstruction that exist only in the mind. 
Hinderances and impossibilities may even yield a 
sort of delight to the imagination by the aspect 
of greatness and terror they assume ; at least 
while we resolve to view them only at a distance. 
And in such cases he must be singularly desti- 
tute of poetic feeling, or singularly conscientious 
and abstinent in the use of language, who, in 
describing the proposed enterprise, does not 
impart to the mere facts a form and colouring 
of unreal greatness and wonder. 

This sort of illusiveness and exaggeration un- 
questionably belongs to the subject of Christian 
missions to China. Who does not feel that the 
high numbers of its dense and far-spread popu- 
lation, amounting perhaps to more than a sixth 
part of the human family, and the yet unpene- 
trated veil of mystery which hangs over the origin 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 287 

of the people, and over their actual condition, 
and even over the geography of the country ; and 
then the singularity of the national character, and 
the anomalous construction of the language, alto- 
gether raise a mist of obscurity which rests in 
the way of the inquirer who asks — Is the attempt 
to introduce Christianity among these millions of 
our brethren utterly vain and visionary ? 

The natural exaggerations which infest this 
subject have indeed been sensibly reduced within 
the last few years : twenty years ago all cautious 
and sagacious Protestants would have thought 
themselves bound, in deference to common sense, 
to deride the idea of converting China to the 
faith of Europe. What the De propaganda, 
with its store of accommodating measures might 
attempt, none who must adhere to the guileless 
methods of Christian instruction would under- 
take : or even if an enterprise of this sort were 
commenced, it must be allowed a date of five 
hundred years for achieving any considerable 
success. But better information, and the actual 
accomplishment of the initiatory process, must 
now, by the least sanguine minds, be deemed 
greatly to have lessened the improbabilities of 
such an attempt, and to have shortened the date 
of our Christian hopes. What has been accom- 
plished of late by the assiduity, and the intellec- 
tual vigour, and the moral intrepidity of two 
or three individuals, has turned the beam of 
calculation ; and it is now rational to talk of that 



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which, very recently, might not have been named 
except among visionaries. 

The brazen gate of China, sculptured with 
inscrutable characters, and bolted and barred, as 
it seemed, against western ingenuity, the gate 
of its anomalous language, has actually been set 
wide open ; and although the ribbon of despotic 
interdiction is still stretched across the highway 
that leads to the popular mind, access, to some 
extent, has been obtained ; and who shall affirm 
that this frail barrier, insurmountable as it may 
now seem, shall at all times, during another fifty 
years, exist, and be respected ? Within even a 
much shorter term is it not probable that revo- 
lutions of dynasty or popular commotions, may 
suspend or divert, for a moment, the vigilance 
of jealous ignorance ? In some such manner it 
may be supposed that, the means of diffusing 
religious knowledge being, as they are, accumu- 
lated, and headed up above the level of the plains 
of China, the dam bursting, or falling into decay, 
the healing flood of Christian truth shall suffuse 
itself in all directions over the vast surface. 

But we are told that the national intellect is. 
spell-bound in a condition of irremediable imbe- 
cility. The people, it is said, have no ideas but 
such as are fixed under the petrifactions of their 
ancient usages ; or even if they had a mind in 
which ideas might float, they have no medium of 
communication, or none which can take up even 
an atom of knowledge or of sentiment that is of 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 289 

foreign growth. How then shall such a people 
be converted to Christianity ? Were it not as 
well to attempt to inform and persuade the 
sculptures of Elephanta, or the glazed images of 
their own pottery ? To all this show of impossi- 
bility, a full and sufficient reply is contained in a 
single affirmation of Scripture, not less philoso- 
phically just than it is beautiful and sublime — 
" The Lord looketh from heaven, He beholdeth 
all the sons of men : from the place of His habi- 
tation He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the 
earth : He fashioneth their hearts alike." 

The old doctrine, that there are certain generic 
and invincible inferiorities of intellect which must 
for ever bar the advancement of some branches of 
the human family, has of late received so signal 
a refutation in the instance of the African race, 
long and pertinaciously consigned by interested 
philosophers to perpetual degradation, that it 
now hardly needs to be argued against. And 
assuredly, if the negro cranium is found, spite of 
phrenologists, to admit of mathematical abstrac- 
tion, fine taste, and fine feeling, it will not be 
affirmed that the skull of the Tatar or Chinese 
must necessarily exclude similar excellences. To 
assert, either that nature has conferred no physical 
superiorities, favourable to the development of 
mind, on particular races, or to maintain that the 
comparative disadvantages of some nations are so 
great and unalterable as to constitute impassable 
barriers in the way of civilization, is equally a 



290 PROBABLE SPREAD 

quackery which history and existing facts con- 
demn, and which nothing but the love of theory 
or simplification could ever recommend to an 
intelligent observer of mankind. With the uni- 
form evidence of history before us, it may well be 
assumed as probable that certain races will always 
retain the intellectual pre-eminence they have 
acquired ; nor is it at all less reasonable to sup- 
pose that every tribe, even the most degraded, is 
intrinsically capable of whatever is essential to a 
state of social order and moral dignity. 

If the lowest degree of proficiency in the 
mechanical arts is justly held to give proof of 
the existence of those powers of abstraction 
whence, with proper culture, the sciences may 
take their rise ; so, with equal certainty may we 
infer a susceptibility of the religious emotions 
from even the feeblest indications of the moral 
sense. When a people diffused over so extensive 
a surface, and so thickly covering that surface, is 
seen to submit itself intelligently to the patri- 
archal form of government, which implies the 
constant and powerful influence of a moral 
abstraction, and a vivid sense of unseen power, 
no doubt can remain of its capacity to admit the 
motives of Christian faith. 

The Chinese are what they are, more from the 
natural consequence of having sustained, during 
many successive generations, what may be termed, 
national imprisonment, than from the operation 
of any physical disabilities. So complete and 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 291 

successful an interdiction of intercourse with 
strangers has not been known to take place in 
any other country ; and a closer fitting of the 
restraints of custom and etiquette upon the 
manners than has elsewhere been effected, have 
not failed to impart to the national character 
that peculiar gait — if the phrase may be used, 
which must distinguish one who had been 
released from his swaddling-bands only to be 
encumbered with a chain, and had worn that 
chain through life. Of the Chinese people it 
may truly be said that " the iron hath entered 
into their soul." 

But even without resting upon the probability 
of the subversion of the existing despotism, the 
defeat of its jealous precautions may be antici- 
pated as what must at length result from the 
present course of events. That portion of the 
Chinese population which may be termed the 
extra-mural, and which, in numbers, exceeds 
some European nations, may be considered as the 
depository of the happy destinies of the empire ; 
for these expatriate millions are accessible to 
instruction, and if once they become, to any 
considerable extent, alive to religious truth, no 
prohibitions of paternal despotism will avail to 
exclude the new principles from the mother 
country. It is a puerile feeling that would draw 
discouragement from the comparative diminutive- 
ness and small actual results of the operations 
that are carrying on for imparting Christianity 

u 2 



292 PROBABLE SPREAD 

to this people. These measures ought, in philo- 
sophical justice, to be viewed as the commence- 
ments of an accelerative movement, acting 
incessantly upon an inert mass, which, by the 
very laws of nature, must at length receive im- 
pulse enough to be carried forward in the course 
of the propelling cause. To be assured of this 
result, all that we need, is to be assured of the 
continuance of the spring of movement. 

If the several spheres of missionary labour are 
reviewed, none, it is presumed, can be deemed 
to offer more serious obstacles than the one 
already referred to ; or if there be one such, yet 
have fact and experiment already given a full 
reply to all objections. May it be permitted to 
say that a voice from heaven, full of meaning, 
is heard in the particular character of the suc- 
cesses, how limited soever they may be, which 
have crowned the incipient attempts to convert 
the heathen ? The veriest reprobates of civiliza- 
tion and social order have been the first to be 
brought in to grace the triumphs of the Gospel 
in its recent attempts at foreign conquest ; as if 
at once to solve all doubts, and to refute all 
cavils relating to the practicability and promise 
of the enterprise. If it had been thought or 
affirmed that the stupefaction and induration of 
heart produced upon a race by ages of un- 
corrected ferocity and sensuality must repel for 
ever the attempts of Christian zeal, it is shown, 
in the instance of the extremest specimens that 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 293 

could have been selected, that a few years only 
of beneficent skill and patience are enough to 
transform the fierce and voluptuous savage into 
a being of pure, and gentle, and noble senti- 
ments ; that within a few years all the domestic 
virtues, and even the public virtues, graced with 
the decencies of rising industry, may occupy the 
very spots that were reeking with human blood, 
and the fil thin ess of every abomination which the 
sun blushes to behold. 

If one islet only of the Southern Ocean had 
cast away its idols and its horrific customs, if 
one hamlet only of the Negro or Hottentot race 
had become Christian, there would have been 
no more place left on which the objector against 
missions could rest his cavils ; for the problem of 
the conversion of the heathen would have been 
satisfactorily solved. But in truth, these happy 
and amazing revolutions have taken place with 
such frequency, and under so great a diversity 
of circumstance, and in front of so many 
obstacles, that instead of asking whether bar- 
barous nations may be persuaded to forsake their 
cruel delusions, it may with more propriety be 
asked — if any thing can prevent the progress 
of such reforms, universally, where Christian zeal 
and wisdom perseveringly perform their part. 

The relative political and commercial condition 
of nations at the present moment affords several 
special grounds of reasoning, on which the ex- 
tension of Christianity may be anticipated as a 



294 PROBABLE SPREAD 

probable event. Among topics of this class may 
be named that of the diffusion of the English 
language — the language which beyond com- 
parison with any other is spreading and running 
through all the earth, and which, by the com- 
merce and enterprise of two independent and 
powerful states, is colonizing the shores of every 
sea; this language, now pouring itself over all 
the waste places of the earth, is the principal 
medium of Christian truth and feeling, and is 
rich in every means of Christian instruction, and 
is fraught with religious sentiment, in all kinds, 
adapted to the taste of the philosopher, the 
cottager, and the infant. Almost apart, there- 
fore, from missionary labour, the spread of this 
language insures the spread of the religion of 
the Bible. The doctrine is entwined with the 
language, and can hardly be disjoined. If the 
two expansive principles of colonization and com- 
mercial enterprise, once diffused the language 
and religion of Greece completely around every 
sea known to ancient navigation, it is now much 
more probable that the same principles of diffu- 
sion will carry English institutions, and English 
opinions, into every climate. 

But in calculations or speculations of this sort, 
merely secular as they are, much less is included 
than truly belongs to the question at issue. Not 
to assume the truth of Christianity, and not to 
argue on the ground of its divine excellence, and 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 295 

not to confide in those prospective declarations,, 
the certainty of which has been attested beyond 
possibility of doubt, is not only to grope in the 
dark when we might walk in the light of noon, but 
to exclude from the working of our problem the 
very facts of most significance in its determina- 
tion. To estimate fairly the probability of the uni- 
versal triumph of true religion, a second method 
must be pursued, in which the existing condition 
of the Christian Church is to be contemplated 
with a Christian feeling. When thus viewed it 
will appear that a promise of a new kind is now 
bursting from the bud ; and the inference may 
confidently be drawn that " summer is nigh." 

For the purpose of measuring the progress of 
religion, attempts have sometimes been made to 
effect a sort of Christian statistics, or calculation 
of the actual number of true believers throughout 
the world. But the propriety of such an appli- 
cation of arithmetic is far from being conspicuous ; 
and seeing that the subject of computation lies 
confessedly beneath the reach of the human eye, 
its accuracy may be absolutely denied. Endea- 
vours, again, have been made to judge of the 
advance or decline of religion by comparing the 
state of devotional feeling and of morals in the 
present, and in other times. But all such com- 
parisons must be deemed, at the best, extremely 
vague, and open to immense errors, arising either 
from the prepossessions of the individual who 
makes the comparison, or from the want of data 



296 PROBABLE SPREAD 

sufficiently ample and exact ; and probably from 
both. 

No attempts of this delusive kind will here 
be offered to the reader ; but instead of them, 
certain unquestionable and obvious facts will be 
assumed as affording reasonable ground of very 
exhilarating hopes. 

If any one were required, without premedita- 
tion, to give a reply to the question — What is 
the most prominent circumstance in the present 
state of the Christian Church, he would, if suffi- 
ciently informed on the subject, almost certainly 
answer — The honour done to the Scriptures. 
Such an answer may be supposed as suggested 
by the conspicuousness of the fact. Now in 
order to gather our inference safely from this 
fact, it is necessary to look back for a moment 
to past times. 

In the first and best age of the Church, the 
deference paid to the inspired writings, whether 
of prophets or apostles, was as great as can be 
imagined to exist : and whatever of beneficial 
influence belongs to the Sacred Volume, was 
then actually in operation ; or it was so with a 
single drawback, namely — that arising from the 
scarcity of the book, and its non-existence in the 
hands of the Christian commonalty. To estimate 
duly the greatness of this disadvantage, let it be 
imagined what would be the effect, among our- 
selves, of a sudden withdrawment of almost all 
but the church copies of the Scriptures. This 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 297 

supposition need not be enlarged upon, for every 
devotional Christian, and every master of a fa- 
mily feels that, in whatever way the loss might 
be attempted to be supplied, it would still be 
afflicting and injurious in the extremest degree. 

In the next, and the declining period of church 
history, if the above-named disadvantage was in 
some small degree remedied by the multipli- 
cation of copies, the benefit was much more than 
overbalanced by the promulgation and general 
prevalence of a false, and very pernicious system 
of exposition ; a system which sheathed the 
"sword of the Spirit," and scarcely left it its 
power of penetrating the conscience. The im- 
mediate consequence of this abuse of the rule 
of faith and practice was the rapid growth of a 
thousand corruptions. Thus, while in lip and 
in ceremonial the Scriptures held their seat of 
reverence, they were dislodged from the throne 
of power. A night of a thousand years suc- 
ceeded, during which the witnesses of God lay 
in their tomb, literally and virtually, hidden, 
and silenced, and degraded. 

The Reformation was in all senses, a resur- 
rection of the Bible ; its recovery and restoration 
as an ancient document ; the recognition of its 
authority as the word of God ; the discovery of 
its meaning as a rule of faith and worship, and 
life ; and its new diffusion through the Christian 
body. The restoration of the Scriptures to their 
place of power and honour brought with it a 



298 PROBABLE SPREAD 

revival of true piety, scarcely, if at all, inferior in 
extent and fervency to that which attended the 
preaching of the apostles. There were however 
deductions from the full influence and permanent 
benefit that might have resulted from this re- 
covery of the sacred canon. Of these deductions 
the first, was the limited and imperfect diffusion 
of copies ; for though the publication of the 
Bible by means of the press was actually great, 
it fell very far short of being complete. The 
next deduction arose from the infant state of the 
science of biblical criticism ; the next, from the 
still unbroken influence of scholastic systems and 
modes of expression, which spread a dense and 
colouring medium over the lucidness of the 
apostolic style ; the next, and the most con- 
siderable and pernicious of these drawbacks, 
arose from the acrimony of controversy, and 
from that spirit of contumacious scrupulosity 
which is the parent of schism. 

These imperfections were great enough to 
bar the progress of Christianity, and to sully its 
glory at the time, and to procure the speedy 
decline of piety in all the Protestant countries. 
But when the present aspect of the Church is 
compared with its condition at the era of the 
Reformation, several circumstances connected 
with the state of the Scriptures offer themselves 
to observation, that are decidedly in favour of our 
times, and such as seem pregnant with hope for 
the future. Of these the first, is the unexampled 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 299 

multiplication and diffusion of the Sacred 
Volume : the second, is the progress made 
towards bringing the original text to a state of 
undisputed purity, and the advancement of the 
science of biblical criticism, by which means the 
verbal meaning of the inspired writers is now 
ascertained more satisfactorily than at any time 
since the apostolic age : and the third, is the 
incipient adoption of an improved method of ex- 
position ; attended by an increasing disposition to 
bow to the Bible, as the only arbiter in matters 
of religion. It remains then briefly to point out 
in what manner these auspicious circumstances 
support the hope of an approaching revival of 
genuine religion. 

For the rlrst of them, namely, the multipli- 
cation and diffusion of the Sacred Volume. 

Whenever the true and the false in matters of 
religion are brought into conflict, two things are 
necessary to secure the triumph of the better side, 
namely, in the first place, that the sound opinion 
should be set forth in a perspicuous and con- 
vincing manner ; and then, that it should be 
borne forwards over the resistances of antiquated 
prejudice and worldly interest, and secular power, 
by the momentum of public feeling. It is not 
the single preaching even of an archangel, that 
could effect the renovation of the church when it 
really needs to be brought back to purity and 
health. All the logic of heaven would die un- 
heeded on the ear, unless re-echoed from the 



300 PROBABLE SPREAD 

multitude. Now if it may for a moment be 
assumed that a general rectification of doctrine 
and practice, and a revival of primitive piety is 
actually about to take place, what is that preli- 
minary measure which might be anticipated as 
the necessary means of giving irresistible force, 
and universal spread to such a reformation ? 
What but the placing of the sacred canon, the 
arbiter of all dispute, and the fountain of all 
motive, previously in the hands of the people of 
every country ? If, in the coming era, the teachers 
of religion are to insist upon its doctrines and 
duties with new force and clearness, their success 
must be expected to bear proportion to the exist- 
ence of scriptural knowledge, or to the means of 
acquiring it, among those whom they address. 

An extraordinary excitement of religious feel- 
ing, arising previously to the general circulation 
of the Scriptures, can hardly be imagined to take 
so prosperous and safe a course, as it would, if it 
followed that circulation. So far as a conjecture 
on the methods of divine procedure may be 
hazarded, it must be believed that the extensive 
dissemination of the Scriptures which has of late 
been carrying on, and which is still in active 
progress, in all those parts of the world that are 
accessible to Christian zeal, is a precursive mea- 
sure, soon to be followed by that happy revolu- 
tion of which it gives so intelligible an augury. 

Let it be said, and perhaps it may be said with 
some truth, that the actual religious impression 






OF CHRISTIANITY. 301 

hitherto produced by the copious issuing of 
Bibles among the common people in our own 
and other countries, is less remarkable than 
might have been anticipated ; then, with so 
much the more confidence may the belief be 
entertained that this extraordinary publication 
of the will of God to man is, on the part of Him 
who overrules all events for the furtherance of 
his gracious designs, altogether a prospective 
measure, and that the special intention of these 
many translations, and of these countless reprints 
of the Bible, is yet to be developed. 

Is there much of gratuitous assumption, or of 
unwarrantable speculation in picturing the pre- 
sent position of mankind in some such manner 
as the following ? During a long course of ages 
a controversy, managed with various success, has 
been carried on here and there in the world, on 
the great questions of immortality, and of the 
liability of man to future punishment, as the 
transgressor of the divine law ; and concerning 
the terms of reconciliation. Hitherto, there has 
stood, on the affirmative, or religious side of this 
controversy, only a small and scattered party ; 
while on the other side, there has remained, 
with more or less of active hostility, the great 
majority of mankind, who have chosen to pursue 
exclusively the interests of the present life, as if 
no doctrine of immortality had been credibly 
announced ; and have dared the future displea- 
sure of the Most High ; and have ventured the 



302 PROBABLE SPREAD 

loss of endless happiness ; and have spurned the 
conditions of pardon. But it is imagined that 
now, events of a new order are to bring this 
momentous controversy to a final crisis. Yet 
before the moment of awful decision comes on, 
and while all minds remain in the listlessness of 
the ancient apathy, and while the winds of high 
commotion lie hushed in the caverns of divine 
restraint — in this season of portentous tranquil- 
lity, those writings, upon the authority of which 
the issue is to turn, are put into every hand; 
and although the hands that receive them, seem 
now to hold the book with a careless grasp, ere 
long an alarm shall be sounded through all 
nations; all shall be roused from their spiritual 
sleep, and shall awake to feel that the interests 
of an endless life are in suspense : then shall it 
appear for what purpose the Bible has first been 
delivered to every people. 

These views, it is granted, are in part con- 
jectural; and yet, who that entertains a belief 
of the providential guidance of the Christian 
Church, can suppose that the most remarkable 
course of events that has hitherto ever marked 
the history of the Scriptures, is not charged with 
the accomplishment of some unusual revolution ; 
and what revolution less than the instalment of 
the Inspired Volume in the throne of universal 
authority, can be thought of, as the probable 
result of the work that is now carrying forwards ? 
If the prejudices of the sceptical spirit, which, in 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 303 

some degree, blind even the most devout, were 
removed, every eye accustomed to penetrate 
futurity, would see in the recent diffusion of the 
Sacred Writings an indubitable sign of their ap- 
proaching triumph over all forms of impiety and 
false religion. 

The friends of Bible Societies might on this 
ground, find a motive for activity, proof against 
all discouragement. When missionary efforts 
meet disappointment, when accomplished teachers 
are removed in quick succession by death, when 
stations where much toil has been expended are 
abandoned, when converts fall away from their 
profession, the whole fruit of zeal perishes : but 
it is otherwise in the work of translating and of 
multiplying the Scriptures; for although these 
endeavours should at first be rejected by those 
for whose benefit they are designed ; still, what 
has been done is not lost ; the seed sown may 
spring up, even after a century of winter. Even 
if the existing Bible Societies, at home and 
abroad, should do nothing more than accomplish 
the initiative labours of translation, and should 
spend their revenues in filling their warehouses 
with an undemanded stock of Bibles, they would 
almost insure the universal diffusion of true 
religion in the ensuing age. Immediate success 
is doubtless to be coveted ; but though this 
should be withheld, the work of translation 
and of printing is pregnant with an infallible 
promise. 



304 PROBABLE SPREAD 

The restoration of the Sacred Text to a state 
of almost undisputed purity, the accumulation of 
the resources of biblical criticism, and the great 
advances that have been made in the business 
of ascertaining the grammatical sense of the in- 
spired writers, are circumstances in a very high 
degree conducive to the expected prevalence of 
genuine religion. Both infidelity and heresy 
have, till of late, found harbourage in the sup- 
posed or pretended corruption or uncertainty of 
the canon. And the whole of those small suc- 
cesses, which have served, from time to time, to 
keep alive the flickering hopes of heterodoxy, 
have been drawn from the detection of petty 
faults in the vulgar text. There was a season 
when some even of the champions of orthodoxy 
became infected with unwarrantable fears and 
suspicions on this ground. But the utmost 
depth of the ektcos has been probed. The most 
sanguine sceptic can henceforward hardly hope 
to derive any new or important advantages from 
this source. The text of the Scriptures is now 
in a state more satisfactory than that of any 
other ancient writings; and though impudence 
and ignorance go on to prate as they were wont, 
no theologian, who would not forfeit his reputa- 
tion as a scholar and a man of sense, dares to 
insist upon objections which some years ago 
were thought to be of the most formidable kind. 

It is remarkable that this work of purgation 
and restoration which, like that of the translation 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 305 

and diffusion of the Scriptures, is manifestly of a 
preliminary kind, should have been completed at 
this precise moment. Had these doubts and 
suspicions remained unexamined and unsettled, 
they might greatly have checked the progress of 
a future religious revival ; they might have given 
birth to new heresies, vigorous from the enhanced 
tone of general feeling ; they might have shaken 
the minds of the faithful, and have distracted the 
attention of the ministers of religion. But this 
preparatory work is done ; and so fully have the 
holds of sceptical doctrine been searched into, 
and so thoroughly has the invalidity of its pleas 
been exposed, that nothing is now wanted but an 
energetic movement of the public mind to shake 
off for ever all its withering sophisms. 

It is not as if even the most faulty translation 
of the Scriptures, or one made from the most 
defective text, would not abundantly convey all 
necessary religious truth ; or, as if Christian 
doctrine and practice were, to any great extent 
dependent upon philological exactitude of any 
kind. But in removing occasions for the cavils 
and insinuations of captious or timid spirits, the 
literary restoration of the Bible, and the abun- 
dant means of ascertaining the grammatical sense 
of its phrases, is highly important. And in look- 
ing towards the future, it must be regarded as 
a circumstance of peculiar significance that the 
documents of our faith have just passed through 
the severest possible ordeal of hostile criticism at 



30G 



PROBABLE SPREAD 



the very moment when they are in course of 
delivery to all nations. 



The recent progress made towards the adop- 
tion of an improved method of exposition de- 
mands to be named amongst the most auspicious 
indications of the present times. Insensibly, and 
undesignedly, and from the operation of various 
causes, all well-intentioned theologians have of 
late been fast advancing towards that simple 
and rational method of inferring the doctrine of 
Scripture which corresponds with the inductive 
method of inquiry, practised in the pursuit of 
physical science. Just as, in the ancient schools 
of philosophy, each pretended expounder of the 
mysteries of nature, first framed his theory, and 
then imposed upon all phenomena such an 
interpretation as would best accord with his 
hypothesis, so have biblical expositors, in long 
succession, from the ancient Jewish doctors, to 
the Christian divines of the last century, with 
very few, if any exceptions, followed the method 
of interpreting each separate portion of Scripture 
by the aid of a previously formed theological 
hypothesis. And although these theories of 
divinity have been, perhaps, fairly founded upon 
scriptural evidence, partially obtained, they have 
often exerted an influence scarcely less binding 
and pernicious than as if they had been alto- 
gether erroneous. This system once admitted to 
constitute a synopsis of truth,has been suffered 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 307 

to exercise the most arrogant domination over 
every part of Scripture in detail. Certain 
dogmas, awfully clothed in the clouds of meta- 
physical phraseology, have bid defiance to the 
most explicit evidence of an opposite meaning ; 
and no text has been permitted to utter its testi- 
mony till it had been placed on the rack. 

But the folly and impiety of this style of inter- 
pretation have become conspicuous ; and though 
not yet quite abandoned, it is left to those whose 
minds have been too long habituated to trammels 
to move at all without them. The rule of the 
new mode of exposition is founded on a principle 
precisely analogous to that which forms the basis 
of the inductive method of inquiry in physical 
science. In these sciences it is now universally 
admitted, that, at the best, and after all possible 
diligence and sagacity have been employed, we 
can scarcely penetrate beyond the exterior move- 
ments of the material system ; while the interior 
mechanism of nature still defies human scrutiny. 
Nothing then could be more preposterous than 
to commence the study of nature by laying down, 
theoretically, the plan of those hidden and central 
contrivances, as if they were open to observation ; 
and then to work outwards from that centre, and 
to explain all facts that come under observation 
in conformity with the principles so ignorantly 
assumed. This is indeed to take a lie in our right 
hand, as the key of knowledge : yet such was the 
philosophy which ruled the world for ages. 

x 2 



308 PROBABLE SPREAD 

The method of hypothetical interpretation is, 
if possible, more absurd in theology than in 
natural science. Every mind not infatuated by 
intellectual vanity, must admit that it is only 
some few necessary points of knowledge, relating 
to the constitution and movements of the infinite 
and spiritual world, that can be made the matter 
of revelation to mankind ; and these must be 
offered in detached portions, apart from their 
symmetry. Meanwhile the vast interior, the 
immeasurable whole, is not merely concealed, but 
is in itself strictly incomprehensible by human 
faculties. Metaphysical projections of the moral 
system, how neat soever, and entire, and plau- 
sible they may seem, can have no place in what 
deserves to be called a rational theology. We 
not only do not know, but we could not learn, 
the very things which the framer of a pretended 
scientific divinity professes to spread forth in all 
their due proportions on his chart of the upper 
world. 

The mode in which the necessarily incomplete 
revelation of that upper world is conveyed in the 
Scriptures, is perfectly in harmony with that in 
which the phenomena of nature offer themselves 
to our notice. The sum or amount of divine 
knowledge really intended to be conveyed to us, 
has been broken up and scattered over a various 
surface ; it has been half-hidden, and half-dis- 
played ; it has been couched beneath hasty and 
incidental allusions ; it has been doled out in 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 309 

morsels and in atoms. There are no logical 
synopses in the Bible ; there are no scientific 
presentations of the body of divinity ; no compre- 
hensive digests ; such would have been, not only 
unsuited to popular taste and comprehension, but 
actually impracticable ; since they must have 
contained that which neither the mind of man 
can receive, nor his language embody. Better 
far might a seraph attempt to convey the large- 
ness of his celestial ideas to a child, than God 
impart a systematic revelation to man. On the 
contrary, it is almost as if the vessel of divine 
philosophy had been wrecked and broken in a 
distant storm, and as if the fragments only had 
come drifting upon our world, which, like an islet 
in the ocean of eternity, has drawn to itself what 
might be floating near its shores. 

The abrupt and illogical style of oriental com- 
position, and in some instances, the character- 
istic simplicity of untutored minds, are to be 
regarded as the appropriate means chosen for 
imparting to mankind such loose particles of 
religious truth as it was necessary for them to 
receive. This inartificial vehicle was, of all 
others, the one best adapted to the conveyance 
of a revelation, necessarily imperfect and partial. 

Now it is manifest that the mode of exposition 
must be conformed to the style of the document; 
and this conformity demands that the inductive 
method, invariably, should be used for gleaning 
the sense of Scripture. While employing all the 



310 



PROBABLE SPREAD 



common and well-known means proper for ascer- 
taining the grammatical sense of ancient writers, 
each single passage of the Inspired Volume, like a 
single phenomenon of nature, is to be interrogated 
for its evidence, without any solicitude for the fate 
of a preconceived theory, and without asking — 
how is this evidence to be reconciled with that 
derived from other quarters : for it is remembered 
that the revelation we are studying is a partial 
discovery of facts, which could not be more than 
imperfectly made known. Whoever has not yet 
fully satisfied himself that the Scriptures, through- 
out, were " given by inspiration of God," should 
lose no time in determining that doubt : but if it 
be determined, then it is a flagrant inconsistency 
not to confide in the principle that the Bible is 
every where truly consistent with itself, whether 
or not we have the means of tracing its agree- 
ments. And while this principle is adhered to, 
no sentiment or fact plainly contained in the 
words, need be refused or contorted on account of 
its apparent incongruity with systematic divinity. 
In this manner only is it possible that the whole 
amount of religious knowledge intended to be 
imparted by the Scriptures can be gathered from 
them. It must be granted as not only probable, 
but certain, that whatever relates to infinity, to 
the divine nature, to the ultimate purposes of the 
divine government, to the unseen worlds, and 
to the future state, and even to the mechanism 
of motives, must offer itself to the human 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 311 

understanding in a form beset with difficulties. 
That this must actually be the case might be 
demonstrated like a mathematical certainty. If 
therefore we resolve to receive from the Inspired 
Writers nothing but what we can reconcile, first 
to certain abstruse notions, and then to a par- 
ticular interpretation of other passages, the con- 
sequence is inevitable — that we obtain a theology, 
needlessly limited, if not erroneous. 

It may fairly be supposed that there are trea- 
sures of divine knowledge yet latent beneath the 
surface of the Scriptures, which the practice of 
scholastic exposition, so long adhered to, on all 
sides, has locked up from the use of the Church ; 
and it may be hoped, that when that method has 
fallen completely into disuse, and when the 
simple and humble style of inductive interpre- 
tation is better understood, and is more con- 
stantly resorted to than at present, and when the 
necessary imperfection and incoherency of all 
human knowledge of divine things is fully recog- 
nized, and when the vain attempt to fashion a 
miniature model of the spiritual universe is for 
ever abandoned, and when whatever the Inspired 
Writers either explicitly affirm, or obscurely inti- 
mate, is embraced in simplicity of heart, that then 
the boundaries of our prospect of the hidden and 
the future world may be vastly enlarged. Nor is 
this all; for in the same manner the occasions of 
controversy will be almost entirely removed ; and 
though smaller differences of opinion may remain, 



312 PROBABLE SPREAD 

it will be seen by all to be flagrantly absurd to 
assume such inconsiderable diversities as the pre- 
texts of dissension and separation. 

No one cordially reverencing the Bible, and 
believing it to be given by inspiration of God, 
who is " not the author of confusion, but of 
order," can imagine it to have been so worded 
and constructed as to necessitate important diver- 
sities of interpretation among those who humbly 
and diligently labour to obtain its meaning. Nor 
will any but the most absurd bigots deny that, 
with those who differ from themselves, there may 
be found diligence and sincerity quite equal to 
their own. What account then is to be given 
of those contrarieties of opinion which continue 
to sully the glory of the Christian Church, and 
to deprive it almost entirely of its expansive 
energy ? 

In endeavouring to give a satisfactory reply 
to this important question, we are, of course, 
entitled to dismiss from the discussion, first, those 
errors of doctrine which spring immediately from 
the prepossessions of proud and unholy minds, 
and which are not to be refuted until such evil 
dispositions are rectified. It is not a better ex- 
position of Scripture merely that will afford an 
efficient remedy for such false opinions. In the 
next place it is proper to put out of the question 
all those politico - religious divisions which, as 
they originated in accident, so now rest for their 
maintenance much less upon reason, than upon 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 313 

the authority of habit, and the pertinacity of 
party feeling, or perhaps even upon motives of 
secular interest. All such causes of schism must 
give way and be scattered to the winds whenever 
the authority of the divine injunctions to peace, 
and union, and mutual forbearance, are forcibly 
felt. 

There should moreover be dismissed from the 
question those differences that have arisen in the 
Church on some special points of antiquarian 
obscurity. These, having been in a past age 
absurdly lifted into importance by an exagge- 
rated notion of the right and duty of Christians 
to stickle upon their individual opinions, even at 
the cost of the great law of love, are now pretty 
generally felt by men of sense and right feeling, 
to be heir -looms of shame and disadvantage to 
whoever holds them. A very probable return to 
good sense and piety is all that is needed to get 
rid for ever of such disputes. If the utmost 
endeavours of competent and honest men, on 
both sides, have not availed to put certain ques- 
tions of ancient usage beyond doubt ; then it is 
manifest that such points belong not to the fun- 
damentals of faith or practice, and therefore can 
never afford ground of justifiable separation ; 
nor should the Christian commonalty be encou- 
raged to suppose that the solemnities of con- 
science are implicated in the decision of questions 
which, even the most learned, cannot in fact 
decide. What less than a grievous injury to 



314 PROBABLE SPREAD 

right feelings can ensue from the popular belief 
that the manifold evils of religious dissension are 
mischiefs of small moment, compared with the 
breach of some niceties of ceremonial ? Shall 
Christianity spread in the world, and shew itself 
glorious, while practical absurdities like these 
are persisted in ? assuredly not. But there is 
reason to believe, even in spite of the fixed- 
ness of some unsocial spirits, that the date of 
schism is nearly expired, and that a better un- 
derstanding of the great law of Christ will ere 
long bring all his true followers into the same 
fold. 

When the deductions named above have been 
made, the remaining differences that exist among 
the pious are such only as may fairly be attributed 
to the influence of the old theoretic system of 
interpretation; and they are such as must pre- 
sently disappear when the rule of inductive 
exposition shall be thoroughly understood and 
generally practised. The hope therefore of an 
approaching prosperous era in the church de- 
pends, in great measure, upon the probability of 
a cordial return to the authority of Scripture — of 
Scripture unshackled by hypothesis. This return 
alone can remove the misunderstandings which 
have parted the body of Christ; and it is the 
reunion of the faithful that must usher in better 
times. 

That a torn Church should be eminently 
prosperous, that it should be favoured as the 



V 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 315 

instrument of diffusing the Gospel with tri- 
umphant success, and on a large scale, among 
the nations, cannot be imagined ; for doubtless 
the Head of the Church holds the most emphatic 
of his admonitions in higher esteem than that he 
should easily brook the breach and contempt of 
it, and put extraordinary honour upon those who 
seem to love their particular opinions more than 
they do " His commandment." 

Even without laying any great stress upon 
that softening of party prejudices which has of 
late actually taken place, the hope of a near 
termination of controversy, and of the healing 
of all permanent differences among true Chris- 
tians, may still rest on solid ground. An in- 
telligent faith in the divine origination of the 
Scriptures contains necessarily a belief in their 
power to bring the Catholic Church into a 
state of unity, so that division should no more 
be thought of. That, during so many ages this 
has not been the condition of the Christian 
body, is satisfactorily to be attributed to causes 
which are by no means of inevitable perpetuity ; 
but which, on the contrary, seem now to be 
approaching their last stage of feeble existence. 
Meanwhile the Oracles of God are visibly as- 
cending to the zenith of their rightful power. 
The necessary preparations for their instalment 
in the place of undisputed authority are com- 
pleted; and nothing is waited for but a move- 
ment of general feeling, to give them such 



316 



PROBABLE SPREAD 



influence as shall bear down whatever now ob- 
structs the universal communion of the faithful. 

An expectation of this sort will, of course, be 
spurned by those (if there are any such) who, 
were they deprived of their darling sectarism, 
and robbed of their sinister preferences, would 
scarcely care at all for Christianity, and to whom 
the idea of Catholic Christianity, if they can 
admit such an idea, is a cold abstraction. And 
it will be rejected also by those who, though 
their feelings are Christian, accustom them- 
selves to look at the state of religion always 
with a secular eye, and are indisposed to admit 
any suppositions not obtruded upon them by im- 
mediate matters of fact. To all such persons 
the existing obstacles that stand in the way of 
Church union must seem utterly insurmountable, 
and the hope of an annihilation of party distinc- 
tions, altogether chimerical. But it is not to 
such minds that the appeal is to be made when 
futurity is in question ; for such are always slaves 
of the past, and of the present, and are destined 
to stand by, and wonder, and cavil, while happy 
revolutions are in progress ; and it is only when 
resistance to the course of things becomes im- 
practicable that they are dragged on reluctantly, 
more like captives than attendants, upon the tri- 
umphant march of truth. 

This assuredly may be asserted, that so far as 
human agency can operate to bring on a better 
era to the Church, he who despairs of it, hinders 



OF CHRISTIANITY. 317 

it, to the extent of his influence ; while he who 
expects it, hastens it, so far as it may be accele- 
rated. This difference of feeling might even be 
assumed as furnishing a test of character ; and it 
might be affirmed that when the question of the 
probable revival and spread of Christianity is 
freely agitated, those who embrace the affirma- 
tive side are (with few exceptions) the persons 
whose temper of mind is the most in harmony 
with the expected happy revolution, and who 
would, with the greatest readiness, act their 
parts in the new and better economy ; while on 
the contrary, those who contentedly or despond- 
ingly give a long date to existing imperfections 
and corruptions, may fairly be suspected of loving 
' the things that are/ too well. 

There is yet another line of argument, wholly 
independent of the two that have been pursued 
above, in which the general spread of true reli- 
gion might be made to appear an event probably 
not very remote ; namely, the argument from 
prophecy. But besides that the subject is by far 
too large and serious to be treated hastily, the 
time is not arrived in which it might be discussed 
with the calmness it demands. Yet in passing 
this subject it may be suggested to those who, 
notwithstanding that they admit the truth of 
Christianity, constantly deride genuine piety 
whenever it comes in their way, that though the 
apparent course of events seems to indicate a 



318 



NOTE TO SECTION I. 



gradual improvement, such as would give time to 
oppugners to choose the wiser part, and to range 
themselves quietly in the train of the conquering 
religion, the general tenor of scriptural predic- 
tions holds out a different prospect, and gives 
great reason to suppose that the final triumph of 
the Gospel is to be ushered in by some sudden and 
vindictive visitation, which shall arrest impiety in 
its full career, and deny for ever to the then im- 
penitent the option of making a better choice. 



NOTE TO SECTION I. 



Strongly feeling as he does, the practical importance of the 
subject he has undertaken to treat, the Author designedly abstains 
from those abstruse disquisitions which, though they fall naturally in 
his way, would, if admitted, give a scientific rather than an ethical 
character to the essay ; and so would not merely repel the gene- 
rality of readers, but favour a notion he deems highly pernicious— 
namely, that momentous questions of religious sentiment and con- 
duct, in which the peasant and the sage have an equal concern, 
cannot be separated from certain abstruse disquisitions ; or that it 
cannot be known whether a man is on the road to heaven or not, 
without the aid of metaphysics. Morals and theology have already 
suffered more than enough from this absurd supposition : the Author 
would carefully avoid seeming to favour so great an error. Never- 
theless, as he finds that some have wished that he had adjusted his 
style to the niceties of the modern philosophy, he is willing, if not to 
supply what has been deemed a defect, at least to state his reasons for 
abstaining from such an attempt. 

The Author then must avow that he regards what is called the Sci- 
ence of Mind as little more than an affair of definitions and of phrases : 
an affair, indeed, which has its importance, but an importance vastly 
overrated (generally) by those who take rank in the republic of letters 



NOTE TO SECTION I. 319 

as professors of that science. Who would not wish to employ 
language always with the utmost precision of which it is capable ? 
and if certain current phrases relating to the mind are found to 
convey erroneous notions, by all means let them be exchanged for 
expressions less vague and delusive. But in fact, unless the mass of 
mankind could be induced to think always with philosophical precision, 
and to speak always with scientific care, the new terms with which 
we may displace the old ones, will no sooner have become common, 
than they, like their predecessors, will acquire manifold incrustations 
of error, and will thus, in their turn, lie open to the animadversions 
of the next generation of metaphysical reformists. Every phrase 
used to convey notions of the mind, and of its operations, may be 
regarded as an algebraic sign, representing just so much of exact 
truth as the mind which employs or which receives it, is already 
possessed of, or is capable of admitting. He who is accustomed to 
analyse profoundly and perfectly the machinery and the working of 
his own mind, will suffer extremely little disadvantage, though he 
should adhere to old-fashioned phrases. On the other hand, those 
whom nature has not gifted to descend into the abysses of the intel- 
lectual system, will gain from " a new and unexceptionable nomen- 
clature " very little, unless it be the preposterous conceit that they 
have learned to think more justly than Aristotle, Bacon, Leibnitz, 
and Locke. 

It is a natural consequence of the present unscientific state of the 
philosophy of Mind, that whenever controversy arises on a question of 
this sort, it runs off speedily from the matter of fact and observation, 
to a mere matter of terms, phrases, and proprieties of language ; as if 
to determine the exact sense of a word, were the same thing as to 
establish or explain a principle of the Intellectual System. When, for 
example, a writer, whose object is simply of a practical, not of a 
scientific kind, undertakes to treat of a certain order of sentiments, or 
of a particular morbid condition of the mind ; and when, for the sake of 
convenience and brevity, he adopts some familiar term as the general 
designation of the feeling or sentiment he is describing, and employs 
that term freely in speaking of the varieties of its development; 
readers of a certain class, instead of asking whether he has truly ex- 
hibited the actual phenomena of the human mind, ask rather, whether 
the common term has not been used by him with an improper lati- 
tude, or has not been perverted from its precise import. 

Now it may be very true, that some such extensions of a phrase 
may be chargeable upon a writer, and yet that he may deserve no 



*9 ?% 

320 



I 



NOTE TO SECTION I. 

great blame on the account. The best that can be done when mat- 
ters of mind are under discussion, is to select from the stores of 
familiar language a term which, in its usual sense, approximates more 
nearly than any other to the substance spoken of. To require from 
an ethical writer more than this, is to demand that, before he enters 
upon his subject, he should both renovate the science of mind and 
reform his mother tongue. For when things not known to any exist- 
ing science are to be spoken of in vulgar phraseology, it must needs 
happen that, in proportion to the accuracy with which they are 
described, there will be apparent occasion for exceptions against the 
sense imputed to such common terms. 

The Author proposed it to himself, as his task, to depict, under its 
principal forms — Fictitious Sentiment in matters of religion, inclu- 
ding, of course, a consideration of those opinions which seem to 
be either the parents or the offspring of such artificial sentiments. 
Having this object before him, he would have thought it a very inau- 
spicious and a very cumbrous method to have constructed a many- 
syllabled phrase of definition, or a many-worded circumlocution, to 
be used on every page of his essay ; and on every page to be clipped 
and fitted to the special proprieties of its place. Instead of attempt- 
ing any such laborious accuracy, he boldly chose* his single term ; 
confiding in the good sense and candour of his readers for allowing 
him a span or two of latitude when employing it in different instances, 
coming under the same general class. If he had known a term 
(sanctioned by general usage) which, better than the word — Enthu- 
siasm, could have served his purpose, unquestionably he would have 
adopted it. But after respectfully listening to all the criticism with 
which his Essay has been honoured, he is still unable to find a 
substitute, and is compelled to persist in calling fictitious religionism 
— Enthusiasm. 






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